[by James Ramsay]

Brother Ramsay,

I’m very interested to hear it if you have found, or given a satisfactory explanation from anyone, concerning an answer to the question you asked at the end of your comment referencing the Hebrew word for evil “rah” in the context it’s used in Isaiah 45:7 and how it’s context in Genesis is compared when God spoke to Adam and Eve about not to eat of the Tree of Good and Evil (rah)? I’m searching too for an explanation since I read your spiritually stimulating question. Thank you brother Ramsay for any assistance in helping a fellow Christian brother in discernment of this word and how it
relates in these two scriptures.

Brother Whitson,

Isaiah 45:7 clearly states that God created “good and evil” but ask any Christian what that means and most assuredly they will find a way to exonerate God, who we will all agree is good, from having anything to do with evil. Most people I’ve encountered simply don’t think very deeply about this topic, so the fact that you’re asking about it now is encouraging. My hope is that what you are about to read is a satisfactory explanation to you or, at the very least, prompts you to conduct a deeper study of the subject.

For full disclosure, before you spend any time reading my response, my question was rhetorical; i.e. I had already started to find the answer sometime in 1994 when I was struggling with a number of issues in my life. I think it would be helpful to answer your question by first explaining what was going on at that time which prompted me to start looking into it and why it became so important to me.

1. I was a member of a legalistic church which I had been attending for 18 years that was
experiencing upheaval over doctrinal questions.
2. My youngest son, who was 7 yrs. old, had been diagnosed with OCD, a mental disorder that
was relatively unknown by the general public at the time.
3. I was taking college level courses in psychology, including Abnormal Psychology which, among
other things, dealt with the subject of frontal lobe injuries and their effect on decision making
and self-control.

If you haven’t yet detected the common denominator between all of these issues, let me cut to the chase: all three involved man’s will, something to which, up until that time, I had always assumed was free, meaning that I was free to choose to do and to think whatever I wanted.

While the other situations, especially the church changes, affected me, my son’s disorder was the worst. His condition disturbed me so much that one day I angrily, and undeservedly, rebuked God, demanding an answer to how He could hold my child accountable for behavior over which he had no control. During the next three months, God used my bible study as a rebuke of my understanding of Him and His relationship with mankind. That experience reminds me of how He answered Job, who essentially did the same thing.

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 40:8  Wilt thou also disannul my judgment? wilt thou condemn me, that thou mayest be righteous? (KJV)

Without any attempt on my part to organize a study on this topic, I was led to scripture after scripture which glorified God’s sovereignty and mankind’s subservience to Him. I had read these many times before, but suddenly they jumped off of the pages as if I had never read them before. Even though I have thought about and studied this topic for the past quarter of a century, I have never put this down on paper, so if you haven’t lost interest so far, I will share some of them below.

I will attempt to do this by answering the following three questions:

1. Why would God create good and evil?
2. Since the same Hebrew word for evil (ra’) is used in both Isaiah 45:7 and Genesis 2:9,17, what does ra’ mean?
3. Why would God create a tree of the knowledge of good and evil, place it in a garden with Adam
and Eve, then tell them not to eat of it?

Ephesians 1:11 introduces a concept of God’s sovereignty that most Christians, while still giving lip service to God’s omnipotence, offhandedly reject; primarily because they simply don’t understand it, and secondarily because their lived experience makes it difficult for them to believe it. To be clear, this is not evidence of Calvinism, but it does vividly describe the relationship between the creator and His creation in terms of whose will was, is and will be accomplished.

Eph 1:11 In Him also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestined according to the purpose of Him who works all things according to the counsel of His will (NKJV)

Restated [we are] “being predestined (i.e. the will of humanity is not sovereign) according to the purpose of Him [God] who works all things according to the counsel of His will (the will of God is sovereign).” So, what does it mean when man describes God as sovereign?

Since scripture is the written word of God, we must appeal to it to even begin to understand this, and what we find is that God alone is omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent, meaning He is the only one who has the power and authority to create and destroy and is aware of all that is; i.e. He is not dependent on or influenced by anything other than Himself. The following passages confirm this.

Heb 4:13  And He is before all things, and in Him all things consist.

Rom 11:34  “For who has known the mind of the LORD? Or who has become His counselor? (quoted from Isa 40:13 below)

Isa 40:13-14  Who has directed the Spirit of the LORD, Or as His counselor has taught Him? With whom did He take counsel, and who instructed Him, and taught Him in the path of justice? Who taught Him knowledge, and showed Him the way of understanding?

Eph 4:4-6  There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all.

Col 1:16-17  For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and for Him. And He is before all things, and in Him all things consist.

Rom 11:33  Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How
unsearchable are His judgments and His ways past finding out!

Jer 32:17  Ah, Lord GOD! Behold, You have made the heavens and the earth by Your great power and outstretched arm. There is nothing too hard for You.

Psa 103:19  The LORD has established His throne in heaven, and His kingdom rules over all.

Job 21:22  Can anyone teach God knowledge, since He judges those on high?

Job 37:16  Do you know how the clouds are balanced, those wondrous works of Him who is perfect in knowledge?

Isa 46:10  Declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times things that are not yet done, Saying, ‘My counsel shall stand, and I will do all My pleasure,’

Job 28:24  For He looks to the ends of the earth, and sees under the whole heavens,

Pro 15:3  The eyes of the LORD are in every place, keeping watch on the evil and the good.

Acts 15:18  Known to God from eternity are all His works.

2Ch 16:9  For the eyes of the LORD run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to show Himself strong on behalf of those whose heart is loyal to Him.

Jer 16:17  For My eyes are on all their ways; they are not hidden from My face, nor is their iniquity hidden from My eyes.

Psa 94:9  He who planted the ear, shall He not hear? He who formed the eye, shall He not see?

The average person, Christians included, believe they have a ‘free will’; i.e. they believe, like God, they are sovereign, in this case limited in power, time, space and awareness but capable of making decisions which they believe are independent of any outside force or influence. In the Bible the term ‘free will’ exists only as a description of a type of offering to be given by the Israelites.

Examples of this are found in Leviticus 22:18-23, Numbers 15:3 and Deuteronomy 12:6. The concept that the will of each human is sovereign, in other words, free from outside influences, does not exist in the Bible although thousands of misunderstood scriptures are used by most Christians to support their belief that indeed it does exist. They are taught by those they believe have the authority to speak for God that in spite of the scriptures you’ve just read about God’s sovereignty that each one of us is capable of making choices contrary to our human nature and our physical circumstances outside of the influence of God, who they believe takes a ‘hands off’ approach to the decisions each human makes.

Generally, at this point I have lost people who are busy thinking of all the commandments, the ‘thou shalt(s)’, that are literally found throughout the Bible. The thinking goes something like this; why would God expect His people to keep multiple commandments, laws, ordinances and regulations in the Old and the New Testament if He didn’t expect them to have the ability to choose to do it? That is an important question and one that deserves an answer, so again, please be patient as I wade through this because the answer is remarkable and life-changing.

Let’s start with the story of Job by asking why God induced Satan to tempt Job? That question, in
and of itself, is spiritually challenging because when you ask most Christians what they think
happened in the story of Job they usually answer that Satan caused God to have Job tested. So if you haven’t read the first two chapters of Job in a while, read it again to reacquaint yourself with what actually happened. The context in which this story unfolds reveals a great deal about how God interacts with His creation, which includes the spiritual realm.

Job 1:6 Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan also came among them. (NKJV)

It is important to recognize that the sons of God, including Satan, presented themselves before the Lord just as a knight of King Arthur’s court would have presented himself before the king. The next time God and Satan interact, the same scene is described in Job 2:1 with an additional fact, ‘Satan came also among them to present himself before the Lord.’ Both verses depict the sons of God and Satan as subordinate to God.

A similar scene is described by the prophet Micaiah in 1 Kings 22:19 and 2 Chronicles 18:18. Since they are almost identical, I will only quote 1 Kings 22:19 here.

1Ki 22:19 Then Micaiah said, “Therefore hear the word of the LORD: I saw the LORD sitting on His throne, and all the host of heaven standing by, on His right hand and on His left.” (NKJV)

The scriptures above as well as several others in both the Old and New Testament depict what appears to be customary gatherings of angelic/spiritual beings around God’s throne as judgments and decisions are being made in a council style setting. What is unique about the four scriptures referenced above is that we get to view how God Himself makes those decisions and commands their implementation by the spirits who answer to Him.

What happens next in the story of Job is important in truly understanding what the book of Job is really about; specifically that man’s righteousness can only be self-righteousness unless God in His sovereign wisdom chooses to make that man righteous. It also elucidates Satan’s role in the created world including his relationship to his and our creator.

Job 1:7 confirms who is in control right from the beginning of the conversation.

Job 1:7 And the LORD said to Satan, “From where do you come?” (NKJV)

Servants do not address their masters like that and considering Satan had presented himself before the Lord, who was on His throne, the Lord is clearly not speaking to an equal. Besides, can you imagine that God had no idea where Satan had been or what he had been up to? Of course, He knew; He created him for a specific purpose.

When Israel was in captivity in Babylon, God used the prophet Isaiah to comfort them. In Isaiah 54, God explained through the prophet that He would once again bless them and remove tribulation from them.

Isa 54:8 With a little wrath I hid My face from you for a moment; but with everlasting kindness I will have mercy on you, says the LORD, your Redeemer. (NKJV)

He continues in verse 14 explaining that He would protect them from oppression, fear and terror.

Isa 54:14  In righteousness you shall be established; you shall be far from oppression, for you shall not fear; and from terror, for it shall not come near you. (NKJV)

He then makes a curious assertion in verse 15 stating that some will assemble against them, but not because of Me.

Isa 54:15  Indeed they shall surely assemble, but not because of Me. Whoever assembles against you shall fall for your sake. (NKJV)

Then in verse 16 He explains what He meant when He said, “not because of Me.”

Isa 54:16  Behold, I have created the smith that bloweth the coals in the fire, and that bringeth forth an instrument for his work; and I have created the waster to destroy. (KJV)

I emboldened “I have created the waster to destroy” because verse 16 explains how God implements His desires while James 1:13 explains why.

Jas 1:13  Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am tempted by God”; for God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does He Himself tempt anyone. (NKJV)

Two points to note here:

1. The smith (blacksmith) creates ‘an instrument for his work’ which in the waster’s case is ‘to
destroy’.
2. The waster’s method of destruction here is to assemble those who would bring oppression,
fear and terror but is destined to fail because God has determined that ‘Whoever assembles
against you shall fall for your sake.’

1 Kings 22 and 2 Chronicles 18 both describe the same heavenly court as it is revealed to the prophet Micaiah, where God mandates a response to the King of Israel’s inquiry of Him regarding whether or not He would bless the King’s desire to take Ramoth in Gilead back from the Syrians.

1Ki 22:20 And the LORD said, ‘Who will persuade Ahab to go up, that he may fall at Ramoth Gilead?’ So one spoke in this manner, and another spoke in that manner.

Notice in verse 20 how God has already pre-determined that the King of Israel would die and his endeavor fail; i.e. evil would come upon him. The only question to be revealed is how He would bring it about.

1Ki 22:21  Then a spirit came forward and stood before the LORD, and said, ‘I will persuade him.’
1Ki 22:22  The LORD said to him, ‘In what way?’ So he said, ‘I will go out and be a lying spirit in the mouth of all his prophets.’ And the LORD said, ‘You shall persuade him, and also prevail. Go out and do so.’

There it is! God reveals to us that He would ‘persuade’ the King of Israel to move forward with what Ahab already wanted to do thereby bringing about his own end at the hands of the Syrians. God agreed to use a ‘lying spirit’ who  through the prophets  would ‘speak unto [the king] smooth things, prophesy deceits’ (Isa 30:10 KJV)

1Ki 22:23 Therefore look! The LORD has put a lying spirit in the mouth of all these prophets of yours, and the LORD has declared disaster against you. (NKJV)

Lamentations 3 confirms what you’ve just read:

Lam 3:37  Who is he that saith, and it cometh to pass, when the Lord commandeth it not?
Lam 3:38  Out of the mouth of the Most High cometh there not evil and good? (ASV)

It seems that Job’s admonishment of his wife’s outburst came from a common understanding of God at the time.

Job 2:10  You speak as one of the foolish women speaks. What? shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil (ra’)? (AKJV)

So what does the Hebrew word for evil (ra’) mean? The answer to that question opens another door to understanding everything discussed up until this point. Religion has muddied the waters on this important topic because instead of simply depending on the original meaning of the word, doctrinal preferences impose additional definitions of the word ‘evil’ that didn’t originally exist.

Isa 45:6  That they may know from the rising of the sun, and from the west, that [there is] none beside me. I [am] the LORD, and [there is] none else.
Isa 45:7  I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these [things].

Using Strong’s Concordance let’s break verse 7 down into the Hebrew words that the author used to better understand it.

I form [yatsar] (3335 to form, fashion) the light, and create [bara’] (1254 choose) darkness [choshek] (2822 darkness, obscurity): I make [asah] (6213 accomplish) peace [shalowm] (7965 completeness, soundness, welfare, peace), and create [bara’] (1254 choose) evil [ra’] (7451 adversity): I the LORD [Yhovah] (3068) do all these things [asah] (6213 accomplish).

Since we’re comparing this evil to the one God used to describe the tree in the garden of which He forbade Adam and Eve to eat, let’s look at Genesis 2:9.

And out of the ground made the LORD [Yhovah] (3068) God [Elohiym] (430 ) to grow [tsamach] (6779 to sprout, spring up) every tree [ets] (608 tree, trees, wood) that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree [ets] (608 tree, trees, wood) of knowledge [da’ath] (1847 knowledge) of good [towb] (2896 beautiful) and evil. [ra’] (7451 adversity).

The KJV translates ra’ in the following manner: evil (442), wickedness (59), wicked (25), mischief (21), hurt (20), bad (13), trouble (10), sore (9), affliction (6), ill (5), adversity (4), favoured (3), harm (3), naught (3), noisome (2), grievous (2), sad (2). It is noteworthy that Strong’s chooses to use a translation which occurs only 4 times out of the 629 times the Hebrew word ra’ is found in the old testament whereas 442 times it is translated ‘evil’.

Two of those times are found in Jeremiah 9:3:

Jer 9:3 And they bend their tongues like their bow for lies: but they are not valiant for the truth upon the earth; for they proceed from evil (ra’) to evil (ra’), and they know not me, saith the LORD. (KJV)

Most of the translations use the word evil, and it could be suggested that this might be based on a doctrinal decision given that it is the Lord describing humans proceeding from evil to evil as opposed to God saying, “I make peace and create evil.”

In addition to the word ra’, notice another one that Strong’s seems to accentuate in Isaiah 45:7.

I form the light, and create [bara’] (1254 choose) darkness:

According to Strong’s, God forms the light and ‘chooses’ darkness? What a curious way to describe what He is doing. According to Strong’s, God does it once again later in the same verse when He supposedly ‘chooses’ ‘adversity’ instead of ‘created’ ‘evil’.

I make [asah] (6213 accomplish) peace [shalowm] (7965 completeness, soundness, welfare, peace), and create [bara’] (1254 choose) evil [ra’] (7451 adversity):

God ‘accomplishes’ ‘completeness, soundness, welfare, peace’ and ‘chooses’ ‘adversity’/evil? However, just like Strong’s ‘choice’ of definition of evil [ra’] in these verses, there appears to be a theological motive behind it when you look at the following actual definitions:

According to Strong’s the KJV translates bara’ 54 times and does so in the following manner: create (42x), creator (3x), choose (2x), make (2x), cut down (2x), dispatch (1x), make fat (1x). Once again, notice that Strong’s chooses to emphasize a translation which occurs only 2 times out of the 54 times the Hebrew word bara’ is found in the old testament over the 42 times it is translated ‘create’. An astute ‘Berean’ would be forced to ask the question, “Why?”

Let’s focus on 1 Kings 22:23 to highlight how once again we find the Hebrew word ra’ as found in Isaiah 45:7 and Genesis 2:9 is translated. Notice how the following versions translate ra’:

“. . . the LORD has proclaimed disaster against you.” (NASB 1995/1997)
“. . . the LORD has pronounced disaster against you.” (HCSB)
“. . . the LORD has determined to bring disaster upon you.” (ISV)
“. . . the LORD has decreed disaster for you.” (NET)
“. . . YHWH has spoken calamity concerning you.” (LSV)
“. . . the LORD hath spoken evil concerning you.” (KJV)

Once again it appears that most of the translations/versions strive to choose a translation for the Hebrew word ra’ that absolves God of any hint of moral evil by using terms that make one think of natural disasters, calamity, trouble or harm. Except for the literal translations this is evident in most other translations where the word ra’ is used.

Several important points become evident when reading the passages from 1 Kings, 2 Chronicles and Job.

1. God is intimately involved in the affairs of men
2. God holds a council meeting with spiritual beings/spirits around His throne to discuss specific issues
3.  God solicits input from these spirits regarding options to consider in responding to
circumstances
4.  Once God hears an option of His liking He mandates that the one suggesting the option carry
it out (in this instance a lying spirit/in Job, the one called Satan)
5.  Even though God does not personally tempt/carry out the mandate, He does take credit for
its successful completion in 1 Kings 22, resulting in the evil/disaster/calamity that He has
already determined will come upon Israel and Judah. After Job loses his children, flocks and
eventually his health, God reveals to him, and to us, what man is in relationship to Himself.
Both of these events had already been pre-determined by God according to “the counsel of
His will”.
6. These events were orchestrated, preserved and written for the benefit of the saints as
explained in Rom. 15:4, For whatever things were written before were written for our
learning, that we through the patience and comfort of the Scriptures might have hope.
(NKJV)

These points are relevant in understanding why God, who is good, would create evil. In addition to making that case from the scriptures above, perhaps it would be impactful to hear it directly from God Himself.

The story of Joseph, a son of Jacob, in the book of Genesis is fascinating because it reveals so much about how God uses the evil He created. The important point in this discussion is made clear near the end of the story.

Gen 50:15  When Joseph’s brothers saw that their father was dead, they said, “Perhaps Joseph will hate us, and may actually repay us for all the evil (ra’) which we did to him.”
Gen 50:16  So they sent messengers to Joseph, saying, ‘Before your father died he commanded, saying,
Gen 50:17  Thus you shall say to Joseph: I beg you, please forgive the trespass of your brothers and their sin; for they did evil (ra’) to you. Now, please, forgive the trespass of the servants of the God of your father.’ And Joseph wept when they spoke to him.
Gen 50:18 Then his brothers also went and fell down before his face, and they said, ‘Behold, we are your servants.’
Gen 50:19  Joseph said to them, ‘Do not be afraid, for am I in the place of God?
Gen 50:20  But as for you, you meant evil (rah) against me; but God meant it for good, in order to bring it about as it is this day, to save many people alive.’ (NKJV)

“But as for you, you meant evil (ra’) against me; but God meant it for good . . .”

What an enlightening statement! God used the corruptible human nature of Joseph’s brothers, in this case, jealousy, to commit evil (ra’), i.e. sell Joseph into slavery and plot to deceive their father into believing he had been killed by an animal, but “the purpose of Him who works all things according to the counsel of His will” was to use the brothers’ evil intentions “. . . to save many people alive.”

While we are given an insider’s view of the inner workings of the council of God in Job, 1 Kings 22 and 2 Chronicles 18, God doesn’t always reveal that process in every decision made, but knowing that God uses evil (rah) to bring about good should help us better understand God and how He operates. Jeremiah 29 is another example of this:

Jer 29:4  Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, to all who were carried away captive, whom I have caused to be carried away from Jerusalem to Babylon:

Jer 29:10  For thus says the LORD: After seventy years are completed at Babylon, I will visit you and perform My good word toward you, and cause you to return to this place.
Jer 29:11  For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the LORD, thoughts of peace and not of evil (rah), to give you a future and a hope. (NKJV)

In Jeremiah 29:4, God admits He “caused (the captives of Judah) to be carried away from Jerusalem to Babylon”, but there is more evidence that a heavenly decision was made to take them into and bring them out of captivity in Daniel:

Dan 9:20  Now while I was speaking, praying, and confessing my sin and the sin of my people Israel, and presenting my supplication before the LORD my God for the holy mountain of my God,
Dan 9:21  yes, while I was speaking in prayer, the man Gabriel, whom I had seen in the vision at the beginning, being caused to fly swiftly, reached me about the time of the evening offering.
Dan 9:22  And he informed me, and talked with me, and said, “O Daniel, I have now come forth to give you skill to understand.
Dan 9:23  At the beginning of your supplications the command went out, and I have come to tell you, for you are greatly beloved; therefore consider the matter, and understand the vision. (NKJV)

At the beginning of Daniel’s supplications (prayers) God commanded/dispatched Gabriel to reveal God’s plan to him. Without this understanding, scriptures like the following can be confusing to the modern mind:

Jdg 9:23  Then God sent an evil (rah’) spirit between Abimelech and the men of Shechem; and the men of Shechem dealt treacherously with Abimelech (KJV)

Or the following:

1Sa 16:14  Now the spirit of the LORD had departed from Saul, and an evil (ra’) spirit from the LORD troubled him.
1Sa 16:15  And Saul’s servants said unto him, Behold now, an evil (ra’) spirit from God troubleth thee. (KJV)

Or the following:

1Sa 18:10  And it came to pass on the morrow, that the evil (ra’) spirit from God came upon Saul, and he prophesied in the midst of the house: and David played with his hand, as at other times: and there was a javelin in Saul’s hand.
1Sa 18:11  And Saul cast the javelin; for he said, I will smite David even to the wall with it. And David avoided out of his presence twice. (KJV)

Or the following:

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

The story of David taking a census of Israel and Judah describes God’s mandate being carried out in real time and reveals more about God’s active role in the process. First, God tells Moses in Exodus 30:11-16 exactly how to carry out a census. He warned the Israelites in verse 11:

Exo 30:11  When you take a census of the Israelites to number them, each man must pay the LORD a ransom for his life when he is counted. Then no plague will come upon them when they are numbered. (Berean Study Bible)

Yet 2 Samuel 24:1 provides a startling revelation regarding how God sometimes ensured that His people did exactly what He told them not to do:

2Sa 24:1  Again the anger of the LORD burned against Israel, and He stirred up David against them, saying, “Go and take a census of Israel and Judah.” (Berean Study Bible)

So God told the Israelites, through Moses, what He required for an acceptable census in Exodus 30 and now He is requiring David to violate that process. Reading verse 1 alone might lead the uninitiated reader to assume that God got David to do this directly, but 1 Chronicles 21:1 reveals, once again, that God used the “waster to destroy” for this purpose:

1Ch 21:1 Then Satan rose up against Israel and incited David to take a census of Israel. (Berean Study Bible)

Joab, commander of David’s army, initially questioned the decision but did as he was ordered. Later in verse 8, David repents of his sin, even though God knew he was incited by a spirit to take the census without following God’s instructions. 2 Samuel 24 and 1 Chronicles 21 both relate the story more or less the same way from that point and again reveal much about the remarkable process God employs in enacting His will. The following is taken from 1 Chronicles 21:

1Ch 21:14  So the LORD sent pestilence upon Israel: and there fell of Israel seventy thousand men.

The next two verses are simply eye-opening; a pestilence/plague is sent to kill 70,000 Israelites and the way God has it done is by directing an angel to stand between earth and heaven with a sword who starts and stops at God’s command.

1Ch 21:15  And God sent an angel unto Jerusalem to destroy it: and as he was destroying, the LORD beheld, and he repented him of the evil (ra’), and said to the angel that destroyed, It is enough, stay now thine hand. And the angel of the LORD stood by the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite.
1Ch 21:16  And David lifted up his eyes, and saw the angel of the LORD stand between the earth and the heaven, having a drawn sword in his hand stretched out over Jerusalem. Then David and the elders of Israel, who were clothed in sackcloth, fell upon their faces.
1Ch 21:17  And David said unto God, Is it not I that commanded the people to be numbered? even I it is that have sinned and done evil (ra’) indeed; but as for these sheep, what have they done? let thine hand, I pray thee, O LORD my God, be on me, and on my father’s house; but not on thy people, that they should be plagued.

Astounding! David was incited by God through Satan to do what God had warned the Israelites during Moses’ time not to do and yet David is [giving an accounting] for it. Like all humans, David was corruptible and susceptible to being influenced by circumstances directed by spiritual forces. Unlike all humans, as a man after God’s own heart, David was given ears to hear God’s voice and eyes to see God’s spiritual servants.

David, in his sinful state as a corruptible human being, was provoked by an overwhelmingly powerful outside force to break a commandment of God and therefore could legitimately claim, although he never did, that he wasn’t responsible for taking the census. Even though God had planned this whole episode before David was even born and saw that it was carried out through the wiles of the ‘waster’, God still held Israel, who obeyed the command of their king, to [give an accounting], and, as a result, they were punished.

This is yet another example of what men (David) meant for evil, God meant for good; specifically showing us how God would use His sovereignty and love to overcome our sinful, corruptible nature and create in us a new nature once the new covenant was established through the sacrifice of Christ and His promised indwelling spirit given to us. Since the old covenant was still in effect, David was required to set up an altar for burnt offerings to the Lord.

1Ch 21:18  Then the angel of the LORD commanded Gad to say to David, that David should go up, and set up an altar unto the LORD in the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite.
1Ch 21:19  And David went up at the saying of Gad, which he spake in the name of the LORD.
1Ch 21:20  And Ornan turned back, and saw the angel; and his four sons with him hid themselves. Now Ornan was threshing wheat.
1Ch 21:21  And as David came to Ornan, Ornan looked and saw David, and went out of the threshing floor, and bowed himself to David with his face to the ground.

David then negotiates with the Jebusite to build the altar on Ornan’s threshing floor as God had commanded him.

1Ch 21:26  And David built there an altar unto the LORD, and offered burnt offerings and peace offerings, and called upon the LORD; and he answered him from heaven by fire upon the altar of burnt offering.
1Ch 21:27  And the LORD commanded the angel; and he put up his sword again into the sheath thereof.
1Ch 21:28  At that time when David saw that the LORD had answered him in the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite, then he sacrificed there.
1Ch 21:29  For the tabernacle of the LORD, which Moses made in the wilderness, and the altar of the burnt offering, were at that season in the high place at Gibeon.
1Ch 21:30  But David could not go before it to inquire of God: for he was afraid because of the sword of the angel of the LORD. (KJV)

In explaining God’s inclusion of all mankind along with the children of Israel as His chosen people, Paul, in Romans 11, unearths an insight that is confirmed scripturally but is largely unknown to modern Christians:

Rom 11:7  What then? What Israel was seeking, it failed to obtain, but the elect did. The others were hardened,
Rom 11:8  as it is written: “God gave them a spirit of stupor, eyes that could not see, and ears that could not hear, to this very day.”

“God gave them a spirit of stupor, eyes that could not see, and ears that could not hear, to this very day!” Paul is referencing the following:

Deu 29:4  Yet the LORD has not given you a heart to perceive and eyes to see and ears to hear, to this very day.

Isa 29:10  For the LORD has poured out on you The spirit of deep sleep, And has closed your eyes, namely, the prophets; And He has covered your heads, namely, the seers.

Isa 6:9  “Go and tell this people, ‘Be ever hearing, but never understanding; be ever seeing, but never perceiving.’
Isa 6:10  Make the hearts of this people calloused; deafen their ears and close their eyes. Otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts, and turn and be healed.” (NKJV)

God is literally closing the eyes and ears of those He has called, making it impossible for them to do His will. Today’s Christians who view themselves as God’s people in our time and who are aware of those passages, read them as past tense and do not apply it to themselves. However, Christ himself makes plain in Matthew 13 below of whom He is speaking (see also Mark 4:10-12 and Luke 8:9-10) as He answers why He speaks parables to the multitudes who throng to hear Him speak, i.e. the church of His day, those who are called, and therefore not chosen, as were His disciples. The following passage in Matthew 13 applies to any one of us if we are not chosen, and are therefore blinded and deafened; i.e., unable to hear His voice.

Mat 13:10  Then the disciples came to Jesus and asked, “Why do You speak to the people in parables?”
Mat 13:11  He replied, “The knowledge of the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven has been given to you, but not to them.
Mat 13:12  Whoever has will be given more, and he will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken away from him.
Mat 13:13  This is why I speak to them in parables: Though seeing, they do not see; though hearing, they do not hear or understand.
Mat 13:14  In them the prophecy of Isaiah is fulfilled: You will be ever hearing but never understanding; you will be ever seeing but never perceiving.
Mat 13:15  For this people’s heart has grown callous; they hardly hear with their ears, and they have closed their eyes. Otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts, and turn, and I would heal them.’
Mat 13:16  But blessed are your eyes because they see, and your ears because they hear.
Mat 13:17  For truly I tell you, many prophets and righteous men longed to see what you see but did not see it, and to hear what you hear but did not hear it.”

If we are “healed”, Paul’s message to the Hebrews in chapter 3:15 will apply to us:

Heb 3:15  ‘To-day, if His voice ye may hear, ye may not harden your hearts, as in the provocation,’ (YLT)

Of course it is reasonable to ask, “What happens if we are not chosen and therefore not healed, remaining deaf and blind to hearing or understanding God’s word?” The Christian world, by and large, blithely assumes that if one does not choose Christ as their savior, of his or her own free will of course, then they are consigned to a torment for eternity or, perhaps, ‘mercifully’ annihilated. In other words, the average Christian assumes that they have made the right choice and can therefore ‘see with their eyes, hear with their ears and understand with their hearts’.

Now that we have broadened our perspective on how God interacts with the physical world and “works all things according to the counsel of His will”, let’s revisit the story of Job where Satan answers His creator’s question, ‘From where do you come?’

Job 1:7 So Satan answered the LORD and said, ‘From going to and fro on the earth, and from walkingback and forth on it.’ (KJV)

The Adversary answered the Lord truthfully since he knows his role and to whom he answers as is confirmed in 1 Peter and Job 12.

1Pe 5:8  Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. (NKJV)

Job 12:16  With him (God) is strength and wisdom: the deceived and the deceiver are his. (KJV)

The next five scriptures are often misappropriated by clergy and layman alike. Typically the one given credit as the protagonist in this story is not God, but Satan as if he is in some sense an equal to God. To those who have misread these passages, allow me to use a modified version of Inigo Montoya’s line from the movie, The Princess Bride:

“You keep [misreading those verses]. I do not think it means what you think it means.”

Please read the following verses carefully and ask yourself, who answers to whom?

Job 1:8  Then the LORD said to Satan, ‘Have you considered My servant Job, that there is none like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, one who fears God and shuns evil?’
Job 1:9   So Satan answered the LORD and said, ‘Does Job fear God for nothing?
Job 1:10  Have You not made a hedge around him, around his household, and around all that he has on every side? You have blessed the work of his hands, and his possessions have increased in the land.
Job 1:11  But now, stretch out Your hand and touch all that he has, and he will surely curse You to Your face!’

Satan knows who is in charge when he acknowledges that God has the power and authority to “stretch out [His] hand and touch all that he has” and God confirms it when He limits Satan’s power over Job in the next verse and as the tool he was created to be, Satan is given permission to destroy what is important to Job, i.e. what he feared most (Job 3:25).

Job 1:12  And the LORD said to Satan, ‘Behold, all that he has is in your power; only do not lay a hand on his person.’ So Satan went out from the presence of the LORD. (NKJV)

After Job loses his children and most of his wealth God hosts another meeting with the angelic cohort including Satan where He once again challenges Satan.

Job 2:3 Then the LORD said to Satan, ‘Have you considered My servant Job, that there is none like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, one who fears God and shuns evil? And still he holds fast to his integrity, although you incited Me against him, to destroy him without cause.’

What an interesting admission: ‘you (Satan) incited Me (God) against him (Job), to destroy him without cause.’ This is why readers misunderstand who is the protagonist (God, not Satan) and who is the antagonist (Satan, not God). God knew the ‘tool’ Satan was created to be would respond with a desire to ‘destroy’ when presented with a challenge by his creator.

In response Satan answered the Lord and said:

Job 2:4  “Skin for skin! Yes, all that a man has he will give for his life.
Job 2:5  But stretch out Your hand now, and touch his bone and his flesh, and he will surely curse You to Your face!”

Once again, God granted him authority and power to bring evil upon Job but with a limit.

Job 2:6 And the LORD said to Satan, “Behold, he is in your hand, but spare his life.”

So now an important question must be addressed. Philippians 2 contains an interesting verse that is generally overlooked. Verse 12 is often quoted to encourage us to do our part; i.e. exercise our ‘free will’ regarding our salvation.

Php 2:12  Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling;

The emboldened phrase is what is usually emphasized but that exhortation is followed by a huge qualifier:

Php 2:13  for it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure.

In a quite emphatic confirmation of God’s sovereignty, Isaiah asserts that God will do what He wants.

Isa 46:10 Declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times things that are not yet done, Saying, ‘My counsel shall stand, and I will do all My pleasure,’

We have already seen multiple times that what someone might have meant for evil, God meant for good or ‘. . . His good pleasure’. If it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure, then does it follow that this could include evil? Proverbs 16:4 clearly affirms:

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

Proverbs 16:1 confirms Philippians 2:13:

Pro 16:1 The preparations of the heart in man, and the answer of the tongue, [is] from the LORD. (KJV)

Isaiah 63:17 frames it in no uncertain terms,

Isa 63:17  O LORD, why hast thou made us to err from thy ways, [and] hardened our heart from thy fear? (KJV)

Job 23:13-14 not only asserts that God is in control, He has many plans regarding you and me and that He does what He wants:

Job 23:13-14  But He is unchangeable, and who can oppose Him? He does what He desires. For He carries out His decree against me, and He has many such plans. (Berean Study Bible)

What are those plans? Following are some of the scriptures alluding to these plans and an interesting similarity between all of them is their connection to this revelation found in Ecclesiastes 1:13.

Ecc 1:13  I applied my heart to inquiring and exploring by wisdom concerning all that is done under the heavens: It is an experience of evil (ra’) Elohim (God) has given to the sons of humanity to humble them by it. (Concordant Literal Version/CLV)

“[A]n experience of evil [God] has given to the sons of humanity to humble them by it” was the wisdom given to Solomon as he inquired from God understanding about “all that is done under the heavens”.

The analogy of the Potter and the Clay in Jeremiah 18 highlights God’s relationship with ancient Israel as a physical nation under the physical application of a spiritual law.

Jer 18:1  The word which came to Jeremiah from the LORD, saying,
Jer 18:2  Arise, and go down to the potter’s house, and there I will cause thee to hear my words.
Jer 18:3  Then I went down to the potter’s house, and, behold, he wrought a work on the wheels.
Jer 18:4  And the vessel that he made of clay was marred in the hand of the potter: so he made it again another vessel, as seemed good to the potter to make it.

While the human potter can inadvertently mar a clay vessel, God would only do so for a specific purpose; i.e. “according to the counsel of His will”.

Jer 18:5  Then the word of the LORD came to me, saying,
Jer 18:6  O house of Israel, cannot I do with you as this potter? saith the LORD. Behold, as the clay is in the potter’s hand, so are ye in mine hand, O house of Israel.

God now gives the parameters for when He would bring evil/disaster/destruction upon ‘a nation/kingdom’ (in this case physical Israel/Judah/Jerusalem) and when He would bless/build up/plant the same.

Jer 18:7  At what instant I shall speak concerning a nation, and concerning a kingdom, to pluck up, and to pull down, and to destroy it;
Jer 18:8  If that nation, against whom I have pronounced, turn from their evil (ra’), I will repent of the evil (ra’) that I thought to do unto them.
Jer 18:9  And at what instant I shall speak concerning a nation, and concerning a kingdom, to build and to plant it;
Jer 18:10  If it do evil (ra’) in my sight, that it obey not my voice, then I will repent of the good, wherewith I said I would benefit them.
Jer 18:11  Now therefore go to, speak to the men of Judah, and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, saying, Thus saith the LORD; Behold, I frame evil (ra’) against you, and devise a device against you: return ye now everyone from his evil (ra’) way, and make your ways and your doings good.

Shockingly, in spite of God’s warning, the people admit they are incapable of avoiding God’s wrath.

Jer 18:12  And they said, There is no hope: but we will walk after our own devices, and we will every one do the imagination of his evil (ra’) heart. (KJV)

Solomon describes man’s condition in much the same way in Psalms 14:1-7 which Paul quotes in Romans as he reveals that God is the God of the Gentiles as well as of the Jews.

Rom 3:10  As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one:
Rom  3:11  There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God.
Rom 3:12  They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one. (KJV)

In spite of this God has declared that He will show mercy on whom He decides to show mercy, not because of what they do or have done.

Rom 9:15  For He says to Moses, “I will have mercy on whomever I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whomever I will have compassion.”
Rom 9:16  So then it is not of him who wills, nor of him who runs, but of God who shows mercy.
Rom 9:17  For the Scripture says to the Pharaoh, “For this very purpose I have raised you up, that I may show My power in you, and that My name may be declared in all the earth.”
Rom 9:18  Therefore He has mercy on whom He wills, and whom He wills He hardens.

Reading this section of Romans 9 is difficult for most Christians because it simply but plainly disrupts their worldview, just as it did for the Jew and Gentile in Paul’s time when he knew what any normal human’s reaction to what he’d stated so far would be. That’s why he then wrote:

Rom 9:19  You will say to me then, “Why does He still find fault? For who has resisted His will?”

Paul then restates the response God gave to Job in chapters 38-42 in a shortened version.

Rom 9:20 But indeed, O man, who are you to reply against God? Will the thing formed say to him who formed it, “Why have you made me like this?”

Paul uses the same analogy of the potter and clay found in Jeremiah 18 to show God’s power to use the evil He created for ‘His good pleasure’, ‘according to the counsel of His will’.

Rom 9:21  Does not the potter have power over the clay, from the same lump to make one vessel for honor and another for dishonor?

Paul explains in the eighth chapter of Romans the full reason why humanity was given ‘an experience of evil/dishonor [by] Elohim (God) . . . to humble [us] by it’.

Rom 8:18  For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.
Rom 8:19  For the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God.
Rom 8:20  For the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who hath subjected the same in hope,
Rom 8:21  Because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God.
Rom 8:22  For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now.

‘[T]ravaileth in pain together’ is an allusion to childbirth which for Eve became more painful after she and Adam sinned by disobeying God in eating of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil as described in Genesis 3:16.

Gen 3:16  To the woman he said, ‘I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children.’

Stated another way, Eve listened to Satan’s lie and disobeyed God ensuring that both of them would become like God, knowing good and evil, and as a result bring evil (God’s wrath) upon themselves and in spite of Satan’s lie would eventually die anyway. Fortunately God already had ‘many such plans’.

I will end by allowing the scriptures below to speak for themselves and if you are given to see the joy that I now experience because of the promises made giving me the hope that now lies within me (and I pray that you will) then we can rejoice together now.

1Co 3:10  According to the grace of God which is given unto me, as a wise masterbuilder, I have laid the foundation, and another buildeth thereon. But let every man take heed how he buildeth thereupon.
1Co 3:11  For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ.
1Co 3:12  Now if any man build upon this foundation gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble;
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.

Rom 8:23  And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body.
Rom 8:24  For we are saved by hope: but hope that is seen is not hope: for what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for?
Rom 8:25  But if we hope for that we see not, then do we with patience wait for it.

Rom 8:28  And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.
Rom 8:29  For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren. (KJV)

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 to come unto the knowledge of the truth.

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.

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

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Isa 57:8-14 You Have Found the Life of Your Hand; Therefore You Were Not Grieved

[Study Aired April 5, 2020]

Isa 57:8  Behind the doors also and the posts hast thou set up thy remembrance: for thou hast discovered thyself to another than me, and art gone up; thou hast enlarged thy bed, and made thee a covenant with them; thou lovedst their bed where thou sawest it.
Isa 57:9  And thou wentest to the king with ointment, and didst increase thy perfumes, and didst send thy messengers far off, and didst debase thyself even unto hell.
Isa 57:10  Thou art wearied in the greatness of thy way; yet saidst thou not, There is no hope: thou hast found the life of thine hand; therefore thou wast not grieved.
Isa 57:11  And of whom hast thou been afraid or feared, that thou hast lied, and hast not remembered me, nor laid it to thy heart? have not I held my peace even of old, and thou fearest me not?
Isa 57:12  I will declare thy righteousness, and thy works; for they shall not profit thee.
Isa 57:13  When thou criest, let thy companies deliver thee; but the wind shall carry them all away; vanity shall take them: but he that putteth his trust in me shall possess the land, and shall inherit my holy mountain;
Isa 57:14  And shall say, Cast ye up, cast ye up, prepare the way, take up the stumblingblock out of the way of my people.

It should surprise none of us that the woman caught in the very act of adultery is each of us, if the Lord has given us eyes that see and ears that hear (Mat 13:9-15). That the spiritual “woman caught in adultery, in the very act” is the self-righteous Pharisee within each of us who is blind to his own spiritual adultery:

Joh 8:3  And the scribes and Pharisees brought unto him a woman taken in adultery; and when they had set her in the midst,
Joh 8:4  They say unto him, Master, this woman was taken in adultery, in the very act.
Joh 8:5  Now Moses in the law commanded us, that such should be stoned: but what sayest thou?
Joh 8:6  This they said, tempting him, that they might have to accuse him. But Jesus stooped down, and with his finger wrote on the ground, as though he heard them not.
Joh 8:7  So when they continued asking him, he lifted up himself, and said unto them, He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.
Joh 8:8  And again he stooped down, and wrote on the ground.
Joh 8:9  And they which heard it, being convicted by their own conscience, went out one by one, beginning at the eldest, even unto the last: and Jesus was left alone, and the woman standing in the midst.
Joh 8:10  When Jesus had lifted up himself, and saw none but the woman, he said unto her, Woman, where are those thine accusers? hath no man condemned thee?
Joh 8:11  She said, No man, Lord. And Jesus said unto her, Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more.

In our last study the Lord told us plainly just how we have each treated Him while fornicating with another man:

Isa 57:3  But draw near hither, ye sons of the sorceress, the seed of the adulterer and the whore.
Isa 57:4  Against whom do ye sport yourselves? against whom make ye a wide mouth, and draw out the tongue? are ye not children of transgression, a seed of falsehood,
Isa 57:5 Enflaming yourselves with idols [of the heart] under every green tree, slaying the children in the valleys under the clifts of the rocks?
Isa 57:6  Among the smooth stones of the stream is thy portion; they, they are thy lot: even to them hast thou poured a drink offering, thou hast offered a meat offering. Should I receive comfort in these?

“Should I receive comfort of these?” demonstrates that we expect the Lord to be pleased with all of our false lying doctrines. Spiritually, while in the darkness of Babylon, we expect our husband to place His stamp of approval on our whorish lies and false doctrines.

Rev 2:9  I know thy works, and tribulation, and poverty, (but thou art rich) and I know the blasphemy of them which say they are Jews, and are not, but are the synagogue of Satan.

Rev 3:9  Behold, I will make them of the synagogue of Satan, which say they are Jews, and are not, but do lie; behold, I will make them to come and worship before thy feet, and to know that I have loved thee.

“Say they are Jews” just means that while we were in Babylon, we thought we were His children and were teaching The Truth. “…But are not… but do lie…” means that our ignorance did not make us His children, nor did it make our lies to be The Truth.

The Lord, in His mercy upon His “very elect” will not forsake us, though we do forsake Him:

Isa 49:15  Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? yea, they may forget, yet will I not forget thee.

However, the Lord wants us to know we are that woman who forgets her sucking child, and He wants us to realize He knows exactly how we have treated Him as our husband:

Isa 57:8  Behind the doors also and the posts hast thou set up thy remembrance: for thou hast discovered thyself to another than me, and art gone up; thou hast enlarged thy bed, and made thee a covenant with them; thou lovedst their bed where thou sawest it.
Isa 57:9  And thou wentest to the king with ointment, and didst increase thy perfumes, and didst send thy messengers far off, and didst debase thyself even unto hell.

The “doors and posts” of Babylon serve the same purpose as the doors and pillars of the temple of God. They serve to keep out those who cannot enter, and they keep those who should not enter from doing so:

Rev 15:7  And one of the four beasts gave unto the seven angels seven golden vials full of the wrath of God, who liveth for ever and ever.
Rev 15:8  And the temple was filled with smoke from the glory of God, and from his power; and no man was able to enter into the temple, till the seven plagues of the seven angels were fulfilled.

What an incredible revelation of Truth! Babylon within us “sends [her] messengers far off” with her lies of a “substitutionary atonement”, and “eternal hell or eternal death… free moral agency… free will and the ten-second sinner’s prayer”. “The king” to whom she sends all these perfumed doctrines is “the god of this world”, and her doctrines are “the doctrines of Jezebel”, which are received and believed by “them that are [at the moment] lost”:

2Co 4:3  But if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost [present tense]:
2Co 4:4  In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them.

All our lies will not be accepted of our True Husband. Yet He still loves us, and after He drags us to see how we have blasphemed His name and the name of our loving heavenly Father, with all of our monstrous lies against Him and His character, this is what we are promised:

Rev 3:12  Him that overcometh will I make a pillar in the temple of my God, and he shall go no more out: and I will write upon him the name of my God, and the name of the city of my God, which is new Jerusalem, which cometh down out of heaven from my God: and I will write upon him my new name.
Rev 3:13  He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches.

The door of the temple hangs upon the pillars of the temple, and Christ has promised to make us pillars in His temple whose “temple we are” when He drags us out of Babylon (1Co 3:16).

We do not come out of our rebellion without a fight though. Our old man does not relinquish the throne of his kingdom without a mighty struggle. In the scripture this struggle is called “war in [our] heavens…” (Rev 12:7); it is called “fiery trials” and “great hail” poured out upon the kingdom of our old man:

Rev 11:19  And the temple of God was opened in heaven, and there was seen in his temple the ark of his testament: and there were lightnings, and voices, and thunderings, and an earthquake, and great hail.

Rev 16:21  And there fell upon men a great hail out of heaven, every stone about the weight of a talent: and men blasphemed God because of the plague of the hail; for the plague thereof was exceeding great.

Here is the function of Biblical ‘hail’:

Isa 28:17  Judgment also will I lay to the line, and righteousness to the plummet: and the hail shall sweep away the refuge of lies, and the waters shall overflow the hiding place.

The lie and false doctrine of our so-called “free will” provokes these words from our Lord:

Isa 57:10  Thou art wearied in the greatness of thy way; yet saidst thou not, There is no hope: thou hast found the life of thine hand; therefore thou wast not grieved.

Our own ways bring us to our wits’ end, but we cannot even acknowledge that fact. The Lord causes us to reap what we have sown, but until the Lord opens our eyes to see His angel withstanding our wickedness, we, just like the prophet, Balaam, don’t even know what is taking place:

Num 22:22  And God’s anger was kindled because he went: and the angel of the LORD stood in the way for an adversary against him. Now he was riding upon his ass, and his two servants were with him.
Num 22:23  And the ass saw the angel of the LORD standing in the way, and his sword drawn in his hand: and the ass turned aside out of the way, and went into the field: and Balaam smote the ass, to turn her into the way.

Pro 23:35  They have stricken me, shalt thou say, and I was not sick; they have beaten me, and I felt it not: when shall I awake? I will seek it yet again.

Jer 5:3  O LORD, are not thine eyes upon the truth? thou hast stricken them, but they have not grieved; thou hast consumed them, but they have refused to receive correction: they have made their faces harder than a rock; they have refused to return.

Isaiah is telling us the exact same thing: “You have found the life of your hand; Therefore, you were not grieved”. But Isaiah reveals why we are not grieved even as our own doctrines and believing our own lies about Him “wearies [us] in the greatness of [our] ways”. Isaiah reveals that the reason this is so is that “[we] have found the life of our own hand”, and we have decided that we are God. While we don’t realize it is so, the fact is that when we believe we have a will that is free from the work of God in our lives, we are in effect “sitting in the temple of God, showing [ourselves] that we are God”:

1Co 3:16  Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?

Then we are informed of what we all first do:

2Th 2:4  Who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God.

“You have found the life of your hand” means we have become convinced our salvation does not really depend upon Christ and His cross at all. What we tell ourselves is that the deciding factor in our salvation is our own freedom to choose whether to repent of our sins and have faith in the efficacy of Christ’s sacrifice or not. We actually believe that our salvation is in our own hands, when the Truth is that “it is God who works within [us] both to will and to do of His good pleasure”, and that “No man can come to [Him] except the Father… draw [Greek: helkuo, drag] him”.

Joh 6:44  No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw [G1670: helkuo, “to drag”] him: and I will raise him up at the last day.

Php 1:6  Being confident of this very thing, that he  which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ:

Php 2:12  Wherefore, my beloved, as ye have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.
Php 2:13  For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure.

Neither our salvation, nor anything else in this life, is of our will:

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.

Our salvation, and everything else in this world “is not of [our] will” but of “whom He will”. Again, this is true not just of our salvation. It is true of “all things”:

Eph 1:9  Having made known unto us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure which he hath purposed in himself:
Eph 1:10  That in the dispensation of the fulness of times he might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth; even in him:
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:

Everything being worked “after the counsel of His own will” being true, and it certainly is true, then these words in this next verse are also “according to the purpose of Him who works all things after the counsel of His own will”:

Isa 57:11  And of whom hast thou been afraid or feared, that thou hast lied, and hast not remembered me, nor laid it to thy heart? have not I held my peace even of old, and thou fearest me not?

The Lord “knows our frame”. He made us willing to do evil if justice is not immediate:

Ecc 8:11  Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil.

We all lived with and taught the lies of Babylon for years with no repercussions. The whole world, including our families and friends, still does.

We do not think of ourselves as being hypocrites, but the desire to be accepted by our friends, families and society more than being accepted by God is what the scriptures call “the fear of man”:

Pro 29:25  The fear of man bringeth a snare: but whoso putteth his trust in the LORD shall be safe.

When we do what comes naturally, we fear men more than we fear God because we can see and hear men, but we have no natural fear of God, and we simply cannot hear His voice. When we place the fear of what men think of us ahead of what the Lord tells us to do, while telling ourselves we love the Lord more than men, we are lying hypocrites, and for that very reason we were admonished just a few chapters earlier:

Isa 51:7  Hearken unto me, ye that know righteousness, the people in whose heart is my law; fear ye not the reproach of men, neither be ye afraid of their revilings.
Isa 51:8  For the moth shall eat them up like a garment, and the worm shall eat them like wool: but my righteousness shall be for ever, and my salvation from generation to generation.
Isa 51:9  Awake, awake, put on strength, O arm of the LORD; awake, as in the ancient days, in the generations of old. Art thou not it that hath cut Rahab, and wounded the dragon?
Isa 51:10  Art thou not it which hath dried the sea, the waters of the great deep; that hath made the depths of the sea a way for the ransomed to pass over?
Isa 51:11  Therefore the redeemed of the LORD shall return, and come with singing unto Zion; and everlasting joy shall be upon their head: they shall obtain gladness and joy; and sorrow and mourning shall flee away.

Physical families and friends are temporary. They will all pass away in just a matter of time. Christ and His words will never leave us:

Joh 14:18  I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you.

2Th 1:11 Wherefore also we pray always for you, that our God would count you worthy of this calling, and fulfil all the good pleasure of his goodness, and the work of faith with power:

Those are extremely comforting words, but only for those who have faith in those words, and faith is a gift from God by which we are given victory over every doubt:

Eph 2:8  For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:

Heb 12:2  Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.

1Pe 1:9  Receiving the end of your faith, even the salvation of your souls.

2Pe 1:1  Simon Peter, a servant and an apostle of Jesus Christ, to them that have obtained like precious faith with us through the righteousness of God and our Saviour Jesus Christ:

1Jn 5:4  For whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world: and this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith.

“Our faith” which saves us is “not of [our]selves, it is the gift of God”. It is “the faith of Jesus Christ” as we are clearly made to know:

Rom 3:22  Even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe: for there is no difference:

Gal 2:16  Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of the law: for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified.

The Truth is that we have absolutely nothing to offer God. We bring nothing to the table. Even “our righteousnesses are as filthy rags” before our Lord:

Isa 64:6  But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away.

This sixth verse in Isaiah 64 above is just keeping his declaration made here in this chapter:

Isa 57:12  I will declare thy righteousness, and thy works; for they shall not profit thee.

“Like the wind… our iniquities” have carried and “taken us away”.

Isa 57:13  When thou criest, let thy companies deliver thee; but the wind shall carry them all away; vanity shall take them: but he that putteth his trust in me shall possess the land, and shall inherit my holy mountain;

We just naturally fear and trust in men instead of God. However, when the Lord visits us to judge us for our lack of faithfulness to Him, our true husband, then “[our] companies”, our friends and families and our societies, forsake us, and they are helpless to deliver us from the fruits of our own vain ways because our own vain ways have been their own vain ways. “The wind shall carry them all away.” We are all guilty of the blood of all the prophets from Abel to Zechariah because we all fear men instead of God:

Luk 11:51  From the blood of Abel unto the blood of Zacharias, which perished between the altar and the temple: verily I say unto you, It shall be required of this generation.

We simply cannot put our trust in the Lord until after the seven plagues of the seven angels have been fulfilled in our lives:

Rev 15:7  And one of the four beasts gave unto the seven angels seven golden vials full of the wrath of God, who liveth for ever and ever.
Rev 15:8  And the temple was filled with smoke from the glory of God, and from his power; and no man was able to enter into the temple, till the seven plagues of the seven angels were fulfilled.

“Enter[ing] into the temple” is the same as “possessing the land, and … inherit[ing] the Lord’s holy mountain”.

Isa 57:13 …he that putteth his trust in me shall possess the land, and shall inherit my holy mountain;

It is also the same as entering into the Lord’s rest:

Heb 4:10  For he that is entered into his rest, he also hath ceased from his own works, as God did from his.

The fulfilling of the seven last plagues is a terrible stumbling block for all of us. We must fulfill that judgment before we can enter the Lord’s temple in our heavens however.

Isa 57:14  And shall say, Cast ye up, cast ye up, prepare the way, take up the stumblingblock out of the way of my people.

One other time we read of ‘preparing the way of the Lord’. It is in Isaiah 35, and here the Lord reveals what is meant by “Cast ye up… prepare the way… take up the stumbling block out of the way of my people”. Let’s look at this other witness to preparing “the way… of my people”:

In this verse “the way” is called “the way of holiness”:

Isa 35:8  And an highway shall be there, and a way, and it shall be called The way of holiness; the unclean shall not pass over it; but it shall be for those: the wayfaring men, though fools, shall not err therein.
Isa 35:9  No lion shall be there, nor any ravenous beast shall go up thereon, it shall not be found there; but the redeemed shall walk there:
Isa 35:10  And the ransomed of the LORD shall return, and come to Zion with songs and everlasting joy upon their heads: they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.

How do we “take up the stumbling block out of the way of [the Lord’s] people? We do so by believing in the words of Christ, rejecting all the lies that contradict His doctrines, and walking in the footsteps of “the stumbling block and [the] rock of offence”. Then we will “walk… there… [as] the redeemed”.

Rom 9:30  What shall we say then? That the Gentiles, which followed not after righteousness, have attained to righteousness, even the righteousness which is of faith.
Rom 9:31  But Israel, which followed after the law of righteousness, hath not attained to the law of righteousness.
Rom 9:32  Wherefore? Because they sought it not by faith, but as it were by the works of the law. For they stumbled at that stumblingstone;
Rom 9:33  As it is written, Behold, I lay in Sion a stumblingstone and rock of offence: and whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed.

When we fail to “attain to the law of righteousness” we do so because our faith is in our own works of righteousness and not “by the faith of Jesus Christ”. We do so because we “are wearied in the greatness of our [own] way… [and we] have found the life of our [own] hand” (Isa 57:10). Even if we say we have faith and claim that faith as our own, we are still “under the curse of the law” because we believe the lie that our faith is our own faith instead of “the gift of God”.

Notice just how important this point is to the Lord:

Gal 2:16  Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of the law: for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified.

Gal 3:22  But the scripture hath concluded all under sin, that the promise by faith of Jesus Christ might be given to them that believe.

Our “companies” (vs 13) in which we hope for the help we need in our time of trouble, are all the false doctrines with which we have replaced the Truth of the Word of God. When Isaiah tells us plainly “You are wearied in the greatness of your way… you have found the strength of your hand”, he is telling us that we have depended upon false doctrines. We have depended upon our own self-righteousness, our own faith, neither of which we possess of ourselves. That is the meaning of depending upon “[our] companies” who will be no help at all when the Lord’s wrath comes against all the lies we have preferred above His Truthful Words. This is made clear in chapter 28 as well as right here in Isaiah 57:14.

This is where the whole world is at this very moment, and this is where we would be without “the faith of Jesus Christ”:

Isa 28:14  Wherefore hear the word of the LORD, ye scornful men, that rule this people which is in Jerusalem.
Isa 28:15  Because ye have said, We have made a covenant with death, and with hell are we at agreement; when the overflowing scourge shall pass through, it shall not come unto us: for we have made lies our refuge, and under falsehood have we hid ourselves:
Isa 28:16  Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD, Behold, I lay in Zion for a foundation a stone, a tried stone, a precious corner stone, a sure foundation: he that believeth shall not make haste.
Isa 28:17  Judgment also will I lay to the line, and righteousness to the plummet: and the hail shall sweep away the refuge of lies, and the waters shall overflow the hiding place.
Isa 28:18  And your covenant with death shall be disannulled, and your agreement with hell shall not stand; when the overflowing scourge shall pass through, then ye shall be trodden down by it.
Isa 28:19  From the time that it goeth forth it shall take you: for morning by morning shall it pass over, by day and by night: and it shall be a vexation only to understand the report.

“The overflowing scourge” is the work of the seven last plagues in the life of the believer. Notice how the fall of Babylon is mentioned both in Revelation 14 in the context of, “Here is the patience of the saints: here are they that keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus.” It is mentioned as well in the seven last plagues of Revelation 16:

Rev 14:6  And I saw another angel fly in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the earth, and to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people,
Rev 14:7  Saying with a loud voice, Fear God, and give glory to him; for the hour of his judgment is come: and worship him that made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and the fountains of waters.
Rev 14:8  And there followed another angel, saying, Babylon is fallen, is fallen, that great city, because she made all nations drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication. [Rev 16:19]
Rev 14:9  And the third angel followed them, saying with a loud voice, If any man worship the beast and his image, and receive his mark in his forehead, or in his hand,
Rev 14:10  The same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of his indignation; and he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb: [All of Rev 16]
Rev 14:11  And the smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever: and they have no rest day nor night, who worship the beast and his image, and whosoever receiveth the mark of his name.
Rev 14:12  Here is the patience of the saints: here are they that keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus.
Rev 14:13  And I heard a voice from heaven saying unto me, Write, Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth: Yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labours; and their works do follow them.

“The hour of His judgment” of the great whore within us is the seven last plagues, and that is the subject of our study today:

Isa 57:8  Behind the doors also and the posts hast thou set up thy remembrance: for thou hast discovered thyself to another than me, and art gone up; thou hast enlarged thy bed, and made thee a covenant with them; thou lovedst their bed where thou sawest it.
Isa 57:9  And thou wentest to the king with ointment, and didst increase thy perfumes, and didst send thy messengers far off, and didst debase thyself even unto hell.

The next chapter of Revelation, the 15^th chapter, introduces the seven angels who pour out the seven last plagues upon the kingdom or our adulterous old man within us. These are the last verses of that chapter:

Rev 15:7  And one of the four beasts gave unto the seven angels seven golden vials full of the wrath of God, who liveth for ever and ever.
Rev 15:8  And the temple was filled with smoke from the glory of God, and from his power; and no man was able to enter into the temple, till the seven plagues of the seven angels were fulfilled.

Chapter 16 is the agonizing result of that judgment upon the kingdom of our beast. Notice that the judgment of great Babylon is revealed in both chapters 14 and 16. Revelation 14:6-12, which we just reviewed, is merely a condensed version of the pouring out of the seven vials upon the kingdom of our old man, which is subject of the entire 16^th chapter of the book of Revelation. Both are concerned with the judgment of the hypocrisy and adultery of the great whore who rides upon the beast within us:

Rev 16:17  And the seventh angel poured out his vial into the air; and there came a great voice out of the temple of heaven, from the throne, saying, It is done.
Rev 16:18  And there were voices, and thunders, and lightnings; and there was a great earthquake, such as was not since men were upon the earth, so mighty an earthquake, and so great.
Rev 16:19  And the great city was divided into three parts, and the cities of the nations fell: and great Babylon came in remembrance before God, to give unto her the cup of the wine of the fierceness of his wrath. [All within us]
Rev 16:20  And every island fled away, and the mountains were not found.
Rev 16:21  And there fell upon men a great hail out of heaven, every stone about the weight of a talent: and men blasphemed God because of the plague of the hail; for the plague thereof was exceeding great.

Notice how this seventh vial corelates to the seventh trumpet:

Rev 11:15  And the seventh angel sounded; and there were great voices in heaven, saying, The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of his Christ; and he shall reign for ever and ever.
Rev 11:16  And the four and twenty elders, which sat before God on their seats, fell upon their faces, and worshipped God,
Rev 11:17  Saying, We give thee thanks, O Lord God Almighty, which art, and wast, and art to come; because thou hast taken to thee thy great power, and hast reigned.
Rev 11:18  And the nations were angry, and thy wrath is come, and the time of the dead, that they should be judged, and that thou shouldest give reward unto thy servants the prophets, and to the saints, and them that fear thy name, small and great; and shouldest destroy them which destroy the earth.
Rev 11:19  And the temple of God was opened in heaven, and there was seen in his temple the ark of his testament: and there were lightnings, and voices, and thunderings, and an earthquake, and great hail.

Chapter 17 reveals to us this great whore of our study today. She rules over all the kings of the earth within our hearts and minds, and then chapter 18 reveals the judgment of this great harlot in even greater detail.

The foundation for the prophecy of the revelation of Jesus Christ within us was all first revealed here in this prophecy of Isaiah. Without this book of Isaiah there could be no book of Revelation.

“There was a great earthquake, such as was not since men were upon the earth, so mighty an earthquake, and so great” (Rev 16:18), is the meaning of our last two verses:

Isa 57:12  I will declare thy righteousness, and thy works; for they shall not profit thee.
Isa 57:13  When thou criest, let thy companies deliver thee; but the wind shall carry them all away; vanity shall take them: but he that putteth his trust in me shall possess the land, and shall inherit my holy mountain;

When the Lord “declares our righteousness”, like a “great earthquake”, we are painfully forced to acknowledge that “[our] works shall not profit [us]”; that is “a great earthquake” indeed!

“He that puts his trust in me shall possess the land, and shall inherit My holy mountain” is the foundation for being able to say:

Rev 2:26  And he that overcometh, and keepeth my works unto the end, to him will I give power over the nations:
Rev 2:27  And he shall rule them with a rod of iron; as the vessels of a potter shall they be broken to shivers: even as I received of my Father.
Rev 2:28  And I will give him the morning star. [Christ is “the Bright And Morning Star”, Rev 22:16]

To “inherit My holy mountain” means to “inherit a kingdom [and to wear] a crown of life”. This is the promise the Lord gives those who suffer with Him in “this present time” (Rom 8:18):

Luk 22:28  Ye are they which have continued with me in my temptations.
Luk 22:29  And I appoint unto you a kingdom, as my Father hath appointed unto me;
Luk 22:30  That ye may eat and drink at my table in my kingdom, and sit on thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel.

Jas 1:12  Blessed is the man that endureth temptation [“…of this present time” Rom 8:18]: for when he is tried, he shall receive the crown of life, which the Lord hath promised to them that love him.

Rev 2:10  Fear none of those things which thou shalt suffer: behold, the devil shall cast some of you into prison, that ye may be tried; and ye shall have tribulation ten days: be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life.

If we are blessed to be judges over the twelve tribes of Israel, then this promise that “He that puts his trust in me shall possess the land, and shall inherit My holy mountain” will also entail this promise:

Rev 2:11  He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches; He that overcometh shall not be hurt of the second death.

I will conclude this study agreeing with the apostle Paul:

Rom 8:18  For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.

Lord willing, in our next study we will finish this 57^th chapter of Isaiah with more very comforting words for the new man within us:

Isa 57:15  For thus saith the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy; I dwell in the high and holy place, with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones.
Isa 57:16  For I will not contend for ever, neither will I be always wroth: for the spirit should fail before me, and the souls which I have made.
Isa 57:17  For the iniquity of his covetousness was I wroth, and smote him: I hid me, and was wroth, and he went on frowardly in the way of his heart.
Isa 57:18  I have seen his ways, and will heal him: I will lead him also, and restore comforts unto him and to his mourners.
Isa 57:19  I create the fruit of the lips; Peace, peace to him that is far off, and to him that is near, saith the LORD; and I will heal him.

Hi Mike,

I have a question on Gen​esis​ 37:3.

It tells us Jacob loved Joseph more than all his children. Now I understand this is telling us Jacob (God the Father) loved Joseph (Jesus) more than all his children, and I’m sure no person of faith would ever dare argue with that, Jesus is God’s only begotten Son.

My question is, does this also apply to those who are In Christ? Does the Father really love some people more than others?

I was always taught God loved all of us equally because God is “no respecter of persons” (Act 10:34; Rom 2:11)

If you have already addressed this issue, please direct me to the appropriate page. Thanks for your help on this Mike, and I’ll look forward to your reply.
Your brother,
C____

Hi C____,

Thank you for your question concerning whether God loves some people more than others?

Shocking as it is to those who ​k​no​w​ nothing about Christ’s special place in His Father’s heart,​ or the special place Christ’s elect have in His heart​,​ this is the Biblical answer to that question, and it obviously has nothing to do with Christ or His Father being a respecter of persons because the decision was made before those mentioned were ever born:

Rom 9:11  (For the children being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but of him that calleth;)
Rom 9:12  It was said unto her, The elder shall serve the younger.
Rom 9:13  As it is written, Jacob have I loved, [before he was born] but Esau have I hated [before he was born].

I​f the Lord is giving you eyes that see and ears that hear, you will say, “​Wow! Where did that come from?” ​That was my reaction when it was first brought to my attention back in the early 1970’s. We have all been taught that mankind was given a will free from any influence from His Creator, when the Truth is that every day of our lives ​is​ “written in His book before there were any of them” (Psa 139:16 ASV).

The very specific purpose and lesson the Lord intends us to glean from the parable of the workers in the Lord’s vineyard is that it is right for Him to do with His own as He wills, and He has a plan which He is working out which does not depend on what we think of His methods of operation.

Look at how this parable agrees with what Paul tells us about the mind of God in Romans 9.

Mat 20:1  For the kingdom of heaven is like unto a man that is an householder, which went out early in the morning to hire labourers into his vineyard.
Mat 20:2  And when he had agreed with the labourers for a penny a day, he sent them into his vineyard.
Mat 20:3  And he went out about the third hour, and saw others standing idle in the marketplace,
Mat 20:4  And said unto them; Go ye also into the vineyard, and whatsoever is right I will give you. And they went their way.
Mat 20:5  Again he went out about the sixth and ninth hour, and did likewise.
Mat 20:6  And about the eleventh hour he went out, and found others standing idle, and saith unto them, Why stand ye here all the day idle?
Mat 20:7  They say unto him, Because no man hath hired us. He saith unto them, Go ye also into the vineyard; and whatsoever is right, that shall ye receive.
Mat 20:8  So when even was come, the lord of the vineyard saith unto his steward, Call the labourers, and give them their hire, beginning from the last unto the first.
Mat 20:9  And when they came that were hired about the eleventh hour, they received every man a penny.
Mat 20:10  But when the first came, they supposed that they should have received more; and they likewise received every man a penny.
Mat 20:11  And when they had received it, they murmured against the goodman of the house,
Mat 20:12  Saying, These last have wrought but one hour, and thou hast made them equal unto us, which have borne the burden and heat of the day.
Mat 20:13  But he answered one of them, and said, Friend, I do thee no wrong: didst not thou agree with me for a penny?
Mat 20:14  Take that thine is, and go thy way: I will give unto this last, even as unto thee.
Mat 20:15  Is it not lawful for me to do what I will with mine own? Is thine eye evil, because I am good?
Mat 20:16  So the last shall be first, and the first last: for many be called, but few chosen.

The very point of this parable is that every man will be given life in the end, “a penny” meaning a day’s wages], but in the meantime, God’s plan to bring about ​his plan demands that the last will be first and the first last because many are called in this age and few are chosen in “this present time” (Rom 8:18). In the 11th chapter of this same book of Romans, Paul makes all of this very clear with this statement concerning those who got paid last:

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 you mercy they also may obtain mercy.
Rom 11:32  For God hath concluded them all in unbelief,

Paul goes on to say this about the function of mankind’s will, and the Lord’s manipulation of Pharaoh:

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. 

There it is! Salvation is all of “He” and nothing of ‘me’ or my will. You and I are merely ‘clay in ​t​he Potter’s hand’​,​ which clay vessel was by ​t​he Potter’s design​;​ “marred in [His] hand” to be remade as a spiritual vessel:

Jer 18:4  And the vessel that he made of clay was marred in the hand of the potter: so he made it again another vessel, as seemed good to the potter to make it.

1Co 15:44  It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body.
1Co 15:45  And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit.
1Co 15:46  Howbeit that was not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural; and afterward that which is spiritual.
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.

What happens when the Lord does not show mercy to a man and instead hardens his heart? This is how the Lord works in the life of every human who has ever lived or ever will live:

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.

We are all by nature wicked and sinful because the preparations of our hearts and the answer of our tongues, which are both by nature evil, are “from the Lord”, and unless ​H​e shows His mercy to us in “this present time” (Rom 8:18), then He has, by nature, given us a hardened heart​,​ and that is why He tells us:

Pro 16:5  Every one that is proud in heart is an abomination to the LORD: though hand join in hand, he shall not be unpunished.
Pro 16:6  By mercy and truth iniquity is purged: and by the fear of the LORD men depart from evil.

But Isaiah tells it like it is with God:

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.

What is the natural response to this knowledge? The holy spirit anticipated our natural reaction and answers that question with these words which immediately follow what we are told about Pharaoh being raised up by God for the very purpose of being destroyed, as is the case for all flesh of all men:

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 [our ‘new man, Christ within us’], and another unto dishonor [our carnal​-​minded old man who is dying daily 1Co 15:31]?
Rom 9:22  What if God, willing to shew his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath [our carnal-minded flesh] fitted to destruction:
Rom 9:23  And that he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy [the “new man”, Christ within us], which he had afore prepared unto glory,
Rom 9:24  Even us, whom he hath called, not of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles?
Rom 9:25  As he saith also in Osee, I will call them my people, which were not my people; and her beloved, which was not beloved.

Now if this is true for every man who has ever lived​,​ then there is no respecter of persons with God,​ and He is simply having mercy on the very few whom His plan calls for being shown His mercy at this stage of His plan, and He is hardening whom He will, not of our will b​ut​ ​by​ His election. T​hat is exactly what we discover has been the case all along:

Psa 139:16  Thine eyes did see mine unformed substance; And in thy book they were all written, Even the days that were ordained for me, When as yet there was none of them.  (ASV)

So what is true for Jacob and Esau and Pharaoh is common to all men, and all of our “days… were ordained for [us] when as yet there was none of them”, and it really​ is​ the Lord Himself who is ruling in all the kingdoms of men, giving all of mankind to be ruled by the basest of men (Dan 4:17)​.​ It is the Lord Himself telling us plainly who is working all the evil in all of the cities on earth (Amos 3:6), and that it is really God Himself who is working all things after the counsel of the only ‘free will’ that exists, which is ​”​His own will”​ (Eph 1:11).​

Dan 4:17  The sentence is by the decree of the watchers, and the demand by the word of the holy ones; to the intent that the living may know that the Most High ruleth in the kingdom of men, and giveth it to whomsoever he will, and setteth up over it the lowest of men.

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?

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:

The few workers who came into the Lord’s vineyard last will be given life first in that “blessed and holy… first resurrection” to rule and reign with Christ a thousand years, after which Satan will be released from prison to deceive the nations in the four quarters of the earth, which will give God the occasion He is seeking to destroy all flesh. When that is accomplished,​ then He will use His few chosen to judge angels in the great white throne judgment which is also called the lake of fire.

Rev 20:1  And I saw an angel come down from heaven, having the key of the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand.
Rev 20:2  And he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the Devil, and Satan, and bound him a thousand years,
Rev 20:3  And cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal upon him, that he should deceive the nations no more, till the thousand years should be fulfilled: and after that he must be loosed a little season.
Rev 20:4  And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them: and I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God, and which had not worshipped the beast, neither his image, neither had received his mark upon their foreheads, or in their hands; and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years.
Rev 20:5  But the rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished. This is the first resurrection.
Rev 20:6  Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection: on such the second death hath no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with him a thousand years.
Rev 20:7  And when the thousand years are expired, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison,
Rev 20:8  And shall go out to deceive the nations which are in the four quarters of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together to battle: the number of whom is as the sand of the sea.
Rev 20:9  And they went up on the breadth of the earth, and compassed the camp of the saints about, and the beloved city: and fire came down from God out of heaven, and devoured them.
Rev 20:10  And the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are, and shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever.
Rev 20:11  And I saw a great white throne, and him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away; and there was found no place for them.
Rev 20:12  And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works.
Rev 20:13  And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them: and they were judged every man according to their works.
Rev 20:14  And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death.
Rev 20:15  And whosoever was not found written in the book of life [a thousand years earlier] was cast into the lake of fire.

Joh 5:28  Marvel not at this: for the hour is coming, in the which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice,
Joh 5:29  And shall come forth; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life [“Blessed and holy… first resurrection]; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation [Greek: krisis – ‘resurrection of judgment, ‘the great white throne judgment’].

This is the fruit of all “judgment” by our Lord:

Isa 26:8  Yea, in the way of thy judgments [The judgment which is “now on the house of God (1Pe 4:17) and the great white throne judgment], O LORD, have we waited for thee; the desire of our soul is to thy name, and to the remembrance of thee.
Isa 26:9  With my soul have I desired thee in the night; yea, with my spirit within me will I seek thee early: for when thy judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness.

I pray this serves to let you know that the Lord truly is no respecter of persons, but instead He has a plan for all of mankind in force since ​”before the world began” (2Ti :9 and Titus 1:2), which He is at this very moment working “after the counsel of His own will”, and that His plan requires that He love His “firstborn… firstfruits” over those who​m​ He preordained to be the later fruits, the later born, who are raised up in the resurrection of damnation, better translated as ‘the resurrection of judgment… the great white throne judgment’.

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:

For a much more in-depth treatment of this subject read After The Counsel ​o​f His Own Will and The Seven Steps t​o Salvation.

I encourage you to read all the papers in the essential reading section for your own edification and to discover what the scriptures actually teach, as opposed to what all the religions of this world teach based upon the false doctrine that man has been given a will free from the “working of all things after the counsel of His own will” (Eph 1:11).

YbiC, Mike

Isa 51:12-17 We Have Drunk At The Hand Of The Lord The Cup Of His Fury - Discussion

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Isa 51-12-17-We Have Drunk At The Hand Of The Lord The Cup Of His Fury

Isa 51:12  I, even I, am he that comforteth you: who art thou, that thou shouldest be afraid of a man that shall die, and of the son of man which shall be made as grass;
Isa 51:13  And forgettest the LORD thy maker, that hath stretched forth the heavens, and laid the foundations of the earth; and hast feared continually every day because of the fury of the oppressor, as if he were ready to destroy? and where is the fury of the oppressor?
Isa 51:14  The captive exile hasteneth that he may be loosed, and that he should not die in the pit, nor that his bread should fail.
Isa 51:15  But I am the LORD thy God, that divided the sea, whose waves roared: The LORD of hosts is his name.
Isa 51:16  And I have put my words in thy mouth, and I have covered thee in the shadow of mine hand, that I may plant the heavens, and lay the foundations of the earth, and say unto Zion, Thou art my people.
Isa 51:17  Awake, awake, stand up, O Jerusalem, which hast drunk at the hand of the LORD the cup of his fury; thou hast drunken the dregs of the cup of trembling, and wrung them out.

In our last study we learned that we are the Lord’s ‘arms’ through which he sends His word to “destroy and to build up”:

Jer 1:10  See, I have this day set thee over the nations and over the kingdoms, to root out, and to pull down, and to destroy, and to throw down, to build, and to plant.

I recall a sermon from my days in the World Wide Church Of God in which the minister pointed to this verse of Jeremiah and made the point that God had “set [Jeremiah] over the nations… to root out, and to pull down, and to destroy, and to throw down, to build and to plant”.

At that time I had not been given eyes to see that the person speaking to Jeremiah was Christ Himself, and that Christ Himself taught us that “man [Greek, ‘anthropos’, mankind, all of mankind, and not just Jeremiah, must] live by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God”.

Mat 4:4  But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.

This study will reveal just how integral the Lord has ordained that His elect are in carrying out His plan for the salvation of all of mankind (1Co 15:22):

Luk_22:29  And I appoint unto you a kingdom, as my Father hath appointed unto me;

Joh_20:21 Then said Jesus to them again, Peace be unto you: as my Father hath sent me, even so send I you.

My own blinded eyes read over these words without considering what Christ’s Father sent Him to accomplish through the kingdom He has appointed to us. So what has the Lord sent us to accomplish?:

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.

Will Christ, really, through us “save… the world”? Oh yes, He will not fail:

1Co 15:21  For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead.
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 to come unto the knowledge of the truth.

The Lord’s will to have all men to be saved is not just some idle desire of His, dependent upon mankind’s fabled ‘free will’, but this is The Truth:

Job 23:13  But he is in one mind, and who can turn him? and what his soul desireth, even that he doeth. 

The believers of ‘this present time’ (Rom 8:18) are the Lord’s special firstfruits , but the very fact they are referred to as ‘firstfruits’ necessitates that there is a later harvest which will encompass “all men”:

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 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.

Jas 1:18. Of his own will begat he us with the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures.

Rev 14:4  These are they which were not defiled with women; for they are virgins. These are they which follow the Lamb whithersoever he goeth. These were redeemed from among men, being the firstfruits unto God and to the Lamb.

Just as it requires fiery trials in this present time to drag us to Christ, it will take the same fiery trials in the great white throne judgment to drag those in the second death to repentance. But the Lord has ordained that we are the saviors of Obadiah 21, and through us not one will be lost:

Oba 1:21  And saviours shall come up on mount Zion to judge the mount of Esau; and the kingdom shall be the LORD'S. 

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. 

That is why we are called the Lord’s arms:

Isa 51:5  My righteousness is near; my salvation is gone forth, and mine arms shall judge the people; the isles shall wait upon me, and on mine arm shall they trust.

Here is the Lord’s “arms [which] shall judge the people”:

Rev 20:4  And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them: and I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God, and which had not worshipped the beast, neither his image, neither had received his mark upon their foreheads, or in their hands; and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years.

If these words proceed out of the mouth of God concerning those who live and reign with Christ for a thousand years, then I am obliged to say, Amen! to these words:

Rev 20:5  But the rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished. This is the first resurrection.
Rev 20:6  Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection: on such the second death hath no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with him a thousand years.

‘Living by every word… of God’ includes living by the limitations and the order which proceeds out of His mouth, as we have all become painfully aware. We simply must not attempt to make those words read… ‘Blessed and holy is he on whom the second death has part’.

In other words, if Christ tells me that He is my head, and the Father is His head (1Co 11:3), and that He, Christ, is “the beginning of the creation of God” (Rev 3:14), I cannot just presumptuously claim that the words “The Beginning of the Creation of God” applies to me, or that I am the head of Christ. I may well be of a group whom He says are “the first to believe on [Him]…the firstfruits unto God and the Lamb” (Eph 1:12 and Rev 14:4), but that is only because those words came out of His mouth and He “is working all things after the counsel of His own will”, and not after the counsel of my twisting of His Words.

Just because the words, “the head of Christ is God” have proceeded out of the mouth of God, does not mean that ‘the head of Christ is mankind’. What utter foolishness, what utter presumptuousness it is to so twist and distort the words of God so as to nullify His own function and place, and the position in which He has placed us in relation to His Father, to Himself, and to our fellow man. What utter foolishness and presumptuousness it is to deny  the order of the events with which He, “after the counsel of His own will”, is working with mankind!!! If we believe that “man shall… live by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God”, then it behooves us to “tremble at His words”, the very words which give us the knowledge of the order and the means through which every man will be “made alive” (1Co 15:23), as well as the rewards given to those  “who first trusted in Christ” (Eph 1:12).

Isa 66:1  Thus saith the LORD, The heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool: where is the house that ye build unto me? and where is the place of my rest?
Isa 66:2  For all those things hath mine hand made, and all those things have been, saith the LORD: but to this man will I look, even to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit, and trembleth at my word. [That is “the place of His rest”]
Isa 66:3  He that killeth an ox is as if he slew a man; he that sacrificeth a lamb, as if he cut off a dog's neck; he that offereth an oblation, as if he offered swine's blood; he that burneth incense, as if he blessed an idol. Yea, they have chosen their own ways, and their soul delighteth in their abominations.
Isa 66:4  I also will choose their delusions, and will bring their fears upon them; because when I called, none did answer; when I spake, they did not hear: but they did evil before mine eyes, and chose that in which I delighted not.
Isa 66:5  Hear the word of the LORD, ye that tremble at his word; Your brethren that hated you, that cast you out for my name's sake, said, Let the LORD be glorified: but he shall appear to your  joy, and they shall be ashamed.
Isa 66:6  A voice of noise from the city, a voice from the temple, a voice of the LORD that rendereth recompence to his enemies.

Not only are we “the arms of the Lord” but we are also “the place of [His] rest.” As His arms He will use us to drag all men to Himself:

1Co 15:22  For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.
1Co 15:23  But every man in his own order: Christ the firstfruits; afterward they that are Christ's at his coming.
1Co 15:24  Then cometh the end, when he shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father; when he shall have put down all rule and all authority and power.
1Co 15:25  For he must reign, till he hath put all enemies under his feet.
1Co 15:26  The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.

Will we dare to say ‘they that are Christ’s will be made alive as firstfruits and then after us Christ’??? Will we presumptuously say that the first resurrection is actually after the thousand years, and the great white throne judgment is prior to the thousand year reign??? Will we dare to say that death is not the last enemy to be destroyed??? Or will we be seduced by the forked tongue of the great red dragon to believe that “if you see anything as ordinal then you can and you will miss the spiritual message”???

No, if the Lord wills we will humbly pay very close attention to the revealed order in which He is in the process of making every man alive in Christ. We will rather acknowledge and agree with the scriptures that Christ is the firstfruits of them that slept, and afterwards they that are Christ’s in “this present time”. And then only after that, after the “little season” of rebellion which follows the thousand year reign of those who are ordained to be the first to be “made alive in Christ [1Co 15:23, in] this present time” (Rom 8:18), will all the rest of mankind be “made alive in Christ” through the same purifying fire, but then the Lord’s words will be known as “the lake of fire”, the same fire which tries every man’s works, but which under that name is ordained for a later time with a different reward (Rev 20:7-15). But we will not be so presumptuous as to assume that just because the fire which is now trying our works is the same fire, the very Word of God which will try those who will be cast into the lake of fire that therefore there is no significance to the words “every man in his own order”. Rather we will humbly acknowledge that anyone counted as ‘firstfruits unto God and the Lamb, are “blessed and holy” above all men of all time, and that the last harvest is never called “the firstfruits unto God and to the Lamb”. No one else is given our honor nor our “crown of life” (Rev 14:4).

Isa 42:8  I am the LORD: that is my name: and my glory will I not give to another, neither my praise to graven images.

1Jn 4:17  Herein is our love made perfect, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment: because as he is, so are we in this world.

The ‘fire’ which is trying our works is doing so now, in “this present time” (Rom 8:18), so that we will “not be hurt of the second death [which is] the lake of fire” (Rev 20:14). And we will give great “respect unto the recompence of [our] reward, [which is our] crown of life”, and the promise of the spirit that ‘the firstfruits unto God and to the Lamb’ will not be hurt of the fires of the lake of fire which is the second death (Heb 11:26; Rev 2:11 and Rev 20:6).

Heb 11:26  Esteeming the reproach of Christ [fidelity to His Words] greater riches than the treasures in Egypt: for he had respect unto the recompence of the reward.

Rev 2:10  Fear none of those things which thou shalt suffer: behold, the devil shall cast some of you into prison, that ye may be tried; and ye shall have tribulation ten days: be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life.
Rev 2:11  He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches; He that overcometh shall not be hurt of the second death.

Lest we lose or despise our promised “crown of life”, let us all pray with King David:

Psa 19:13  Keep back thy servant also from presumptuous sins; let them not have dominion over me: then shall I be upright, and I shall be innocent from the great transgression.

So while we want to avoid presumptuous sins, we must acknowledge that anything which does not accord with the word of God is the very definition of ‘presumptuous sins’. We must accept all the Lord has given us to do or we are just as presumptuous as those who have no ‘respect unto unto the recompence of the reward’ (Heb 11:26).

While I was totally unaware of what the Lord has prepared for those that love Him, I have since been granted to see that the Lord has revealed them unto us by the words of His spirit:

1Co 2:9  But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him.
1Co 2:10  But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit: for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God. 

In this study the spirit of the Lord’s words will reveal some of the deep things of God to us, and we will see just how integral we are to His work which work from the Father’s perspective was completed in Christ, through His Christ “from the foundation of this world… before the world began”: 

2Ti 1:9  Who hath saved us, and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began,

Tit 1:2  In hope of eternal life, which God, that cannot lie, promised before the world began; 

We have shown that God wants and will have all men to be saved, but we now see that He has predestined” some few to be those who will “first believe in [Christ]”, and to rule with Him over the nations of this world for a thousand years:

Eph 1:5  Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will,
Eph 1:6  To the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved.
Eph 1:7  In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace;
Eph 1:8  Wherein he hath abounded toward us in all wisdom and prudence;
Eph 1:9  Having made known unto us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure which he hath purposed in himself:
Eph 1:10  That in the dispensation of the fulness of times he might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth; even in him:
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:
Eph 1:12  That we should be to the praise of his glory, who first trusted in Christ. 

If we “tremble at [the Lord’s] words we dare not make these words read ‘All men of all time will be to the praise of His glory regardless of when they trusted in Christ’. Yet there are millions of Christians who know nothing whatever about any later fruits. The masses of Christianity actually believe that if you are not converted in this age then you will never have access to the redemptive blood of Christ. To believe that “as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive”, will in fact cause you to be expelled from most Christian congregations anywhere on earth.

This brings us to the first verses of our study today:

Isa 51:12  I, even I, am he that comforteth you: who art thou, that thou shouldest be afraid of a man that shall die, and of the son of man which shall be made as grass;
Isa 51:13  And forgettest the LORD thy maker, that hath stretched forth the heavens, and laid the foundations of the earth; and hast feared continually every day because of the fury of the oppressor, as if he were ready to destroy? and where is the fury of the oppressor?

The loss of the friendship of this world is a real threat to the kingdom of our old man. The family of the man Christ healed of being born blind feared being cast out of the synagogue if they said anything favorable about the Lord  who had just healed their son of His life long blindness:

Joh 9:20  His parents answered them and said, We know that this is our son, and that he was born blind:
Joh 9:21  But by what means he now seeth, we know not; or who hath opened his eyes, we know not: he is of age; ask him: he shall speak for himself.
Joh 9:22  These words spake his parents, because they feared the Jews: for the Jews had agreed already, that if any man did confess that he was Christ, he should be put out of the synagogue.

Christ knows we are spirits in prison longing to be free. But He also knows that we of ourselves are incapable of delivering ourselves from our spiritual prison or of feeding ourselves:

Isa 51:14  The captive exile hasteneth that he may be loosed, and that he should not die in the pit, nor that his bread should fail.

Christ knows we simply cannot just naturally accept the fact that He is still quite capable of leading us through the Red Sea, the fiery furnace, the lion’s den, and through the death of the cross. So He has given us the promise of His Word which He tells us “cannot be broken” (Joh 10:35):

Isa 49:25  But thus saith the LORD, Even the captives of the mighty shall be taken away, and the prey of the terrible shall be delivered: for I will contend with him that contendeth with thee, and I will save thy children.

Isa 61:1  The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me; because the LORD hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek; he hath sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound;

Joh 10:35  If he called them gods, unto whom the word of God came, and the scripture cannot be broken; 

“The scriptures cannot be broken”, and the Lord promises to “contend with those who contend with you” and He reminds us why men are never to be feared:

Isa 51:15  But I am the LORD thy God, that divided the sea, whose waves roared: The LORD of hosts is his name. 

Then He also tells us of the calling we have been given, and the work He is doing through us as His Christ, His inheritance… His anointed. We are His instrument through whom  He is bringing all men and all powers and principalities, in heaven and in earth to Himself: 

Isa 51:16  And I have put my words in thy mouth, and I have covered thee in the shadow of mine hand, that I may plant the heavens, and lay the foundations of the earth, and say unto Zion, Thou art my people. 

“I have covered you in the shadow of mine hand that I might plant the heavens, and lay the foundations of the earth”. This verse is giving us  the same message the Lord gave Jeremiah which I referenced at the beginning of this study:

Jer 1:10  See, I have this day set thee over the nations and over the kingdoms, to root out, and to pull down, and to destroy, and to throw down, to build, and to plant.

We know this must be done in the kingdom of God within us first (Luk 17:20-21). But when that is accomplished by Christ within us then, and only then, will Christ use us as His instrument to accomplish everything His Father sent Him to accomplish, and that involves being placed over the literal, physical, carnal nations of this world, to root out all evil and rebellion, to pull down all that rise up against the Lord and His Christ, His anointed, to throw them all down and to build and to plant the seeds of His kingdom.

It all begins at the “seventh trump”, which inwardly is the establishing of the kingdom of God within, and outwardly and dispensationally it is at the appearing of Christ and at the beginning of the thousand year reign of Christ:

Rev 11:15  And the seventh angel sounded; and there were great voices in heaven, saying, The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of his Christ; and he shall reign for ever and ever. [The thousand years first and then through the lake of fire].

The Lord has come into our lives to dismantled and utterly destroy the kingdom of our old man, and in doing so He causes us “at His hand” to partake of the seven plagues of the seven angels, which brings us to our last verse in this chapter of Isaiah for today:

Isa 51:17  Awake, awake, stand up, O Jerusalem, which hast drunk at the hand of the LORD the cup of his fury; thou hast drunken the dregs of the cup of trembling, and wrung them out.

The message of this verse is repeated in Revelation 14 and 15:

Rev 14:8  And there followed another angel, saying, Babylon is fallen, is fallen, that great city, because she made all nations drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication.
Rev 14:9  And the third angel followed them, saying with a loud voice, If any man worship the beast and his image, and receive his mark in his forehead, or in his hand,
Rev 14:10  The same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of his indignation; and he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb:
Rev 14:11  And the smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever: and they have no rest day nor night, who worship the beast and his image, and whosoever receiveth the mark of his name. [What is all this torment in “the wrath of God”?]
Rev 14:12  Here is the patience of the saints: here are they that keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus.

“Here is the patience of the saints: Here are they that keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus”. The fact is that no man can enter the temple until the seven plagues of the seven angels is fulfilled in that man’s life:

Rev 15:7  And one of the four beasts gave unto the seven angels seven golden vials full of the wrath of God, who liveth for ever and ever.
Rev 15:8  And the temple was filled with smoke from the glory of God, and from his power; and no man was able to enter into the temple, till the seven plagues of the seven angels were fulfilled.

The Lord’s elect will fulfull the seven plagues of the seven angels, and at the seventh trump, the Lord will send us to do what His Father sent Him to do, and we will then become every instrument He needs to rule the kingdoms of this world for a thousand years, and then we will continue to “judge angels” in the lake of fire.

Look at just how versatile in His hands we are right now in spirit, and just how versatile we will be during the thousand years and also in the lake of fire:

Jer 51:20 Thou art my battle axe and weapons of war: for with thee will I break in pieces the nations, and with thee will I destroy kingdoms;
Jer 51:21  And with thee will I break in pieces the horse and his rider; and with thee will I break in pieces the chariot and his rider;
Jer 51:22  With thee also will I break in pieces man and woman; and with thee will I break in pieces old and young; and with thee will I break in pieces the young man and the maid;
Jer 51:23  I will also break in pieces with thee the shepherd and his flock; and with thee will I break in pieces the husbandman and his yoke of oxen; and with thee will I break in pieces captains and rulers.

Inwardly we must “work out [our] own salvation with fear and trembling” acknowledging that “it is Christ which works in [us] both to will and to do of His good pleasure”:

Php 2:12  Wherefore, my beloved, as ye have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.
Php 2:13  For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure.

These words demonstrate that while we must acknowledge that “it is God which works in [us] both to will and to do of His good pleasure”, acknowledging His work within us in no way denies that we must still “work out our own salvation [and] do the things that [Christ] says”:

Luk 6:46  And why call ye me, Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say?

Php 2:12  Wherefore, my beloved, as ye have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.
Php 2:13  For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure.

Since we must “work out [our] own salvation (Php 2:12-13), [and] do the things [Christ tells us to do]” (Luk 6:46), in that sense we are His inward “battle axe and weapons of war”. We are waging war inwardly every day, breaking in pieces the nations, destroying kingdoms; breaking in pieces the horse and his rider;   breaking in pieces the chariot and his rider; breaking in pieces man and woman [who deny the doctrines of Christ]; breaking in pieces old and young [who withstand an oppose the Lord and His doctrines]; and within us we are breaking in pieces the young man and the maid, who will not submit to Christ within us; We are also breaking in pieces within us the shepherd and his flock; the husbandman and his yoke of oxen; and  captains and rulers.

This is the “war in heaven” which is the “fiery trials” and sufferings which must “try every man’s works”, inwardly in “this present time”:

Rom 8:18  For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.

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.

Rev 12:7  And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels,
Rev 12:8  And prevailed not; neither was their place found any more in heaven.

Eph 2:6 and Heb 9:23 demonstrate that ‘heaven’ is within our hearts and minds, just as it was with Christ who was also “seated… in the heavens even as He walked on this earth:

Joh 3:13  And no man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven, even the Son of man which is in heaven.

Eph 2:6  And hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus:

Heb 9:23  It was therefore necessary that the patterns of things in the heavens should be purified with these; but the heavenly things themselves [that would be us] with better sacrifices than these. 

But when “the sufferings of this present time” are “endured to the end”, then as “overcomers” we are given to reign with Christ for a thousand years over the kingdoms of this world:

Rev 11:15  And the seventh angel sounded; and there were great voices in heaven, saying, The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of his Christ; and he shall reign for ever and ever.

Rev 20:4  And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them: and I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God, and which had not worshipped the beast, neither his image, neither had received his mark upon their foreheads, or in their hands; and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years.
Rev 20:5  But the rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished. This is the first resurrection.
Rev 20:6  Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection: on such the second death hath no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with him a thousand years. 

And this is what is meant by “reign[ing] with Christ a thousand years”:

Rev 2:26  And he that overcometh, and keepeth my works unto the end, to him will I give power over the nations:
Rev 2:27  And he shall rule them with a rod of iron; as the vessels of a potter shall they be broken to shivers: even as I received of my Father. 

Ruling with a rod of iron is the same as being the Lord’s “battle axe and His weapons of war”, with which the Lord will put down every religion and ever nation which will refuse to submit to the hegemony of “the Lord and His Christ”:

The Lord has added the words in Jeremiah 51 to His words in Isaiah 51:

Jer 51:20  Thou art my battle axe and weapons of war: for with thee will I break in pieces the nations, and with thee will I destroy kingdoms;
Jer 51:21  And with thee will I break in pieces the horse and his rider; and with thee will I break in pieces the chariot and his rider;
Jer 51:22  With thee also will I break in pieces man and woman; and with thee will I break in pieces old and young; and with thee will I break in pieces the young man and the maid;
Jer 51:23  I will also break in pieces with thee the shepherd and his flock; and with thee will I break in pieces the husbandman and his yoke of oxen; and with thee will I break in pieces captains and rulers.

A “battle axe” is designed for delivering a death blow to the head of the enemy. It is indeed a “weapon of war”, designed spiritually to decapitate our old man with all of his rebellious doctrines, which are armies of the nations and kingdoms within us.

Those ‘nations and kingdoms’ we are sent to “break in pieces”, have only the power given them by the Lord to serve as our dying old man (Joh 19:11). “The horse and his rider… the chariot and his rider”, are nothing more than the powerful rebellious, lying, false, doctrines like the false doctrines of an immortal soul which can be tormented for all eternity, and which directly contradict and nullify the doctrines of Christ which are foolishness to the “horse and his rider” within us (1Co 2:13-15). “The man and the woman” within us are “[our] father the devil… the great red dragon”, and his wife, the great harlot who sits upon us and rules us with her horrendous burdens of eternal torment, tithing, and the observing of days, months times and years, and the oppressively heavy burden of the false doctrine of free moral agency, which places the responsibility of our salvation upon our own shoulders. Having the knowledge of The Truth, we are sent to break that ‘man and woman’, and all of their false doctrines to pieces.

“The shepherd and his flock… the husbandman and his yoke of oxen; [and the] captains and rulers” we are sent to break in pieces and destroy are the Nicolaitan “captain and their rulers”, those Babylonian ministers who lay such heavy burdens upon us that we cannot begin to bear them.

All of these things are within us and restrain us from seeing the plain Truth which is “that which is written” right there before our eyes in His written word. These all are parts of the kingdom of our old man who must be destroyed and who can only be destroyed by “the brightness of [Christ’s] coming” (2th 2:8) to delivers us from our dark prison:

Isa 42:6 I the LORD have called thee in righteousness, and will hold thine hand, and will keep thee, and give thee for a covenant of the people, for a light of the Gentiles;

Isa 42:7  To open the blind eyes, to bring out the prisoners from the prison, and them that sit in darkness out of the prison house.

As we saw earlier in this 51^st chapter of Isaiah we are not just the weapons of war, we will also judge and bring salvation to all of mankind as  His arms:

Isa 51:5  My righteousness is near; my salvation is gone forth, and mine arms shall judge the people; the isles shall wait upon me, and on mine arm shall they trust.

Isa 53:1  Who hath believed our report? and to whom is the arm of the LORD revealed?
Isa 53:2  For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground: he hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him.

As is always the case, these words are primarily fulfilled in Christ. But it is few indeed “to whom… [we as] the arm of the Lord [are] revealed”. Many may acknowledge that Christ is the arm of His Father, but who is Christ’s arms through whom He will judge the nations? The answer according to Christ Himself is that we are His body whom He has sent us into this world to do the exact same thing His Father sent Him to accomplish:

Joh 20:21  Then said Jesus to them again, Peace be unto you: as my Father hath sent me, even so send I you.

Christ’s Father sent Him as His arms to save this world and because He has sent us as His Father sent Him we are His ‘arms’ and we are even called “saviors”:

Oba 1:21  And saviours shall come up on mount Zion to judge the mount of Esau; and the kingdom shall be the LORD'S.

We are these ‘saviors’ who will judge ‘Esau’ a type of this world during the thousand years and then we will judge the spirits of all men and angels in the lake of fire:

1Co 6:2  Do ye not know that the saints shall judge the world? and if the world shall be judged by you, are ye unworthy to judge the smallest matters?
1Co 6:3  Know ye not that we shall judge angels? how much more things that pertain to this life?

Here are the “judges” of Esau… the world… and… angels”:

Rev 20:4  And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them: and I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God, and which had not worshipped the beast, neither his image, neither had received his mark upon their foreheads, or in their hands; and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years.
Rev 20:5 But the rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished. This is the first resurrection.
Rev 20:6  Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection: on such the second death hath no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with him a thousand years.

That is our study for today. Here are our verses for our next study of the exhortation and comfort of the words of this prophet, Isaiah:

Isa 51:18  There is none to guide her among all the sons whom she hath brought forth; neither is there any that taketh her by the hand of all the sons that she hath brought up.
Isa 51:19  These two things are come unto thee; who shall be sorry for thee? desolation, and destruction, and the famine, and the sword: by whom shall I comfort thee?
Isa 51:20  Thy sons have fainted, they lie at the head of all the streets, as a wild bull in a net: they are full of the fury of the LORD, the rebuke of thy God.
Isa 51:21  Therefore hear now this, thou afflicted, and drunken, but not with wine:
Isa 51:22  Thus saith thy Lord the LORD, and thy God that pleadeth the cause of his people, Behold, I have taken out of thine hand the cup of trembling, even the dregs of the cup of my fury; thou shalt no more drink it again:
Isa 51:23  But I will put it into the hand of them that afflict thee; which have said to thy soul, Bow down, that we may go over: and thou hast laid thy body as the ground, and as the street, to them that went over.

Isa 45:8  Drop down, ye heavens, from above, and let the skies pour down righteousness: let the earth open, and let them bring forth salvation, and let righteousness spring up together; I the LORD have created it.
Isa 45:9  Woe unto him that striveth with his Maker! Let the potsherd strive with the potsherds of the earth. Shall the clay say to him that fashioneth it, What makest thou? or thy work, He hath no hands?
Isa 45:10  Woe unto him that saith unto his father, What begettest thou? or to the woman, What hast thou brought forth?
Isa 45:11  Thus saith the LORD , the Holy One of Israel, and his Maker, Ask me of things to come concerning my sons, and concerning the work of my hands command ye me.
Isa 45:12  I have made the earth, and created man upon it: I, even my hands, have stretched out the heavens, and all their host have I commanded.
Isa 45:13  I have raised him up in righteousness, and I will direct all his ways: he shall build my city, and he shall let go my captives, not for price nor reward, saith the LORD of hosts. 

The theme of this entire prophecy has been the Lord’s sovereign work, which depends on no one other than Himself. A sub theme is that He has sovereignly determined to work through His people Israel, His “Elect”, and in this age all He is doing is for their sake:

Isa 45:4  For Jacob my servant’s sake, and Israel mine elect, I have even called thee by thy name: I have surnamed thee, though thou hast not known me.
Isa 45:5  I am the LORD , and there is none else, there is no God beside me: I girded thee, though thou hast not known me:
Isa 45:6  That they may know from the rising of the sun, and from the west, that there is none beside me. I am the LORD , and there is none else.
Isa 45:7  I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things. 

2Co 4:15  For all things are for your sakes, that the abundant grace might through the thanksgiving of many redound to the glory of God.

All the Lord does for Israel’s sake is designed to bring glory to Him who makes it all happen, as we are twice told at the beginning of this prophecy:

Isa 2:11  The lofty looks of man shall be humbled, and the haughtiness of men shall be bowed down, and the LORD alone shall be exalted in that day. 

Isa 2:17  And the loftiness of man shall be bowed down, and the haughtiness of men shall be made low: and the LORD alone shall be exalted in that day.

The Lord does not need us, but we do need Him, and He will not let us believe any lie which would take away from the great Truth that He, and He alone, is working all things after the counsel of His own will (Eph 1:11).

Our study today continues driving that Truth home to all whom He has given eyes that see and ears that hear:

Isa 45:8  Drop down, ye heavens, from above, and let the skies pour down righteousness: let the earth open, and let them bring forth salvation, and let righteousness spring up together; I the LORD have created it.

Our heavens will ‘drop down and pour down righteousness’. Our earth will open and “bring forth salvation”. The Lord has spoken, and so it will be, as we are told in next week’s study in this same chapter:

Isa 45:23 I ave sworn by myself, the word is gone out of my mouth in righteousness, and shall not return, That unto me every knee shall bow, every tongue shall swear.

Isa 55:11 So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it.

These words accord with the very first words of scripture:

Gen 1:1  IN the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

The word ‘created’ in both Genesis 1:1 and Isaiah 45:8 is in the Qal Stem, which is the Hebrew equivalent of the Greek aorist tense, meaning it is a simple statement of fact without regard to any tense.

What that means is that the action of the verb is ongoing and not finished or a thing only of the past. The Hebrew word translated as ‘created’ here in Isaiah 45 and in Genesis 1:1 is ‘bara‘. Here is the Hebrew ‘stem’ for this word:

H8804
Stem -Qal  See [H8851]
Mood -Perfect  See [H8816]

Let’s repeat our first verse for our study today:

Isa 45:8  Drop down, ye heavens, from above, and let the skies pour down righteousness: let the earth open, and let them bring forth salvation, and let righteousness spring up together; I the LORD have created it.

The King James version makes both Genesis 1:1 and Isaiah 45:8 sound as if the Lord’s creation is all in the past and over with and completely accomplished. Most Christians believe Adam was created as a finished and perfected product who, by his own fabled ‘free will’, fell from that perfection and must now use that same lie, his so-called ‘free will’ to save himself.

Nothing could be further from the Truth. The fact is that it is the seventh day which completes the Lord’s creation of “a new man… conformed to the image of His Son”. We are told this “new man” was called in Christ “before the world began”, belying the fact that the Lord knew “before the world began” that Adam would sin and need a Savior, Christ, who is Adam’s seventh day rest.

God did not complete His creation when he “created the heavens and the earth… in six days” because His creation is not yet mature.

Exo 20:11 For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it.

Rather, He is at this moment in the process of “creating the heavens and the earth” as He is still in the process of ‘conforming mankind in His image’. Being ‘incomplete and corruptible’ is the very meaning of the number six in scripture.

The CLV gets it right in this case:

Gen 1:27 And creating is the Elohim humanity in His image. In the image of the Elohim He creates it. Male and female He creates them.

If the first Adam were the Lord’s completed product, how could He possibly tell us we were “called… in Christ Jesus before the world began”?

2Ti 1:9  Who hath saved us, and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began, 

Tit 1:2  In hope of eternal life, which God, that cannot lie, promised before the world began;

If “the first… Adam” had been perfected, he would never have disobeyed the Lord. The “vessel of clay” was created on the sixth day, and this is what we are told of that part of the Lord’s work with us:

Jer 18:4 And the vessel that he made of clay was marred in the hand of the potter: so he made it again another vessel, as seemed good to the potter to make it.

Here is what must happen with each of us before the Lord’s creation within us is complete:

Heb 4:10  For he that is entered into his rest, he also hath ceased from his own works, as God did from his.
Heb 4:11  Let us labour therefore to enter into that rest, lest any man fall after the same example of unbelief. 

With eyes gifted to see “the things of the spirit”, the Lord has made it clear that six is the number which signifies being spiritually incomplete, subject to death, and yet in a corruptible state. That is the very meaning of “the vessel of clay [which is] marred in the hand of the Potter” (Jer 18:4). Seven, denoting the rest of God, Christ our ‘rest’, is the completion of the work the Lord is doing within His creatures as He makes them to fulfill this 8th verse of Isaiah 45:

Isa 45:8  Drop down, ye heavens, from above, and let the skies pour down righteousness: let the earth open, and let them bring forth salvation, and let righteousness spring up together; I the LORD have created it. 

His “vessel of clay” was deliberately and by design “marred in the Potter’s hand” and will be “made… a new vessel… conformed to the image of His Son”:

Jer 18:4  And the vessel that he made of clay was marred in the hand of the potter: so he made it again another vessel, as seemed good to the potter to make it.

Rom 8:29  For whom he did foreknow [“before the world began”], he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren.

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

Job 23:13-14, and all the rest of the Lord’s word, lets us know the Truth of the Lord is going about doing His work with and within mankind, and this is the order in which He is “working all things after the counsel of His own will” (Eph 1:11):

There is no schizophrenia nor is there any need for a ‘plan B’ with a sovereign and all wise Creator:

Job 23:13  But he is in one mind, and who can turn him? and what his soul desireth, even that he doeth. 

The Lord repeats this fact throughout His Word, and as He is doing here in Isaiah, so He does in:

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

Daniel confirms this Truth:

Dan 4:17  This matter is by the decree of the watchers, and the demand by the word of the holy ones: to the intent that the living may know that the most High ruleth in the kingdom of men, and giveth it to whomsoever he will, and setteth up over it the basest of men. 

We humans have absolutely nothing to do with the Lord’s decision concerning our individual or collective salvation. It is all a matter of what the Lord determined for each of us “before the world began” as we just read in 2Timothy 1:9 and Titus 1:2).

The Lord plainly tells us that our salvation has nothing whatsoever to do with our will:

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. 

Where is the false doctrine of mankind having a will free from the will of God to be found in that verse or anywhere else in scripture? It is not to be found anywhere, and in those verses that speak of our choices and our will, it can always be demonstrated that our choices and our will are nothing more than an integral part of what He had written in our books for all of our days “before there were any of them”:

Psa 139:16  Thine eyes did see mine unformed substance; And in thy book they were all written, Even the days that were ordained for me, When as yet there was none of them. (ASV)

Therefore, this admonition is written in each of our ‘books’:

Isa 45:9  Woe unto him that striveth with his Maker! Let the potsherd strive with the potsherds of the earth. Shall the clay say to him that fashioneth it, What makest thou? or thy work, He hath no hands?

This is the very next point Paul makes in Romans 9:

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 didst thou make me thus?
Rom 9:21  Or hath not the potter a right over the clay, from the same lump to make one part a vessel unto honor, and another unto dishonor?

None of us, not one of all of mankind, is what he is by his own choice. We are one and all what God has made us, whether we are good or evil. Whether we work hard or are lazy, whether we are indolent or very motivated, whatever we are is what He “the Potter” (Jer 18:4) has made us to be:

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 18:6 O house of Israel, cannot I do with you as this potter? saith the LORD. Behold, as the clay is in the potter’s hand, so are ye in mine hand, O house of Israel.
Jer 18:7 At what instant I shall speak concerning a nation, and concerning a kingdom, to pluck up, and to pull down, and to destroy it;

It is as natural as breathing to take that knowledge and turn it into a lascivious, do-nothing spirit. However, when we do so then that, too, was written in our book “before the world began”. God’s sovereignty includes both our indolence and our zeal to please Him. The Lord’s sovereignty encompasses the time needed to make that transition from a self-serving, spiritually indolent, old man to “a new man” of whom it can be said “the zeal of thine house has eaten me up”:

Psa 69:9  For the zeal of thine house hath eaten me up; and the reproaches of them that reproached thee are fallen upon me.

Just as we are told “not that which is spiritual is first, but that which is natural and afterwards that which is spiritual”, it follows that our spiritually indolent old man must precede our spiritually zealous, diligent and vigilant new man. It is through Christ in us we are granted to become that ‘new man’, but it is while we are living out the process of being “made… again a new vessel” that we are admonished:

Isa 45:10  Woe unto him that saith unto his father, What begettest thou? or to the woman, What hast thou brought forth? 

Our Creator is both our ‘father’ and our ‘mother’. It is not at all wise for a child to question why his parents insist on being honored and obeyed. There is an order in all things the Lord has made, and that order will be maintained.

Let’s put verses nine and ten together to get the full force of what the Lord is telling us. That will help us to better understand verse 11.

Here are verses 9-10:

Isa 45:9  Woe unto him that striveth with his Maker! Let the potsherd strive with the potsherds of the earth. Shall the clay say to him that fashioneth it, What makest thou? or thy work, He hath no hands?
Isa 45:10  Woe unto him that saith unto his father, What begettest thou? or to the woman, What hast thou brought forth?

We dare not question our own Creator. We are His, and we are the work of His hands with which He is entitled to do as He pleases:

Christ make this point in the parable of the workers in the vineyard:

Mat 20:8  So when even was come, the lord of the vineyard saith unto his steward, Call the labourers, and give them their hire, beginning from the last unto the first.
Mat 20:9  And when they came that were hired about the eleventh hour, they received every man a penny.
Mat 20:10  But when the first came, they supposed that they should have received more; and they likewise received every man a penny.
Mat 20:11  And when they had received it, they murmured against the goodman of the house,
Mat 20:12  Saying, These last have wrought but one hour, and thou hast made them equal unto us, which have borne the burden and heat of the day.
Mat 20:13  But he answered one of them, and said, Friend, I do thee no wrong: didst not thou agree with me for a penny?
Mat 20:14  Take that thine is, and go thy way: I will give unto this last, even as unto thee.
Mat 20:15  Is it not lawful for me to do what I will with mine own? Is thine eye evil, because I am good?
Mat 20:16  So the last shall be first, and the first last: for many be called, but few chosen.

Paul confirms this principle in:

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 [salvation] is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy.

The reason the Lord has given us all these verses with the tone of this entire chapter is:

Isa 45:6  That they may know from the rising of the sun, and from the west, that there is none beside me. I am the LORD, and there is none else.
Isa 45:7 I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things.

With the proper tone set, let’s now read our next verse:

Isa 45:11  Thus saith the LORD, the Holy One of Israel, and his Maker, Ask me of things to come concerning my sons, and concerning the work of my hands command ye me.

We must remember there were no punctuation marks in either the original Hebrew or Greek manuscripts. So, considering the entire tone of this chapter and all the emphasis upon the sovereignty of the Lord, it is absolute insanity to attempt to make verse 11 say that we can “command [God] concerning the work of [His] hands”, as so many Charismatic, Pentecostal and New Age ministers teach and want us to believe. Do not believe it! Let the potsherd strive with the potsherds of the earth”, but do not contend with or attempt to command your own Creator concerning the works of His hands.

Job, typifying us, was severely reprimanded by the Lord for having such a presumptuous attitude:

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 40:3  Then Job answered the LORD , and said,
Job 40:4  Behold, I am vile; what shall I answer thee? I will lay mine hand upon my mouth.
Job 40:5  Once have I spoken; but I will not answer: yea, twice; but I will proceed no further.
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?
Job 40:9  Hast thou an arm like God? or canst thou thunder with a voice like him?

We most certainly do not “have an arm like God”, and yet dare we to think we can command God concerning the works of His hands? No, a much better translation would have been to put about three question marks at the end of verse 11:

Isa 45:11  Thus saith the LORD , the Holy One of Israel, and his Maker, Ask me of things to come concerning my sons, and concerning the work of my hands command ye me???

What the Lord is telling us is that we know very well we cannot know what the future holds concerning “[His] sons”, and we must inquire of that knowledge from Him, “Ask me of things to come…” [‘but do not think that you can tell me what actions will be the work of My hands’]. Yet the adversary has been given to persuade many of us to think that we are somehow in a position to tell the Lord that He must do what we want done.

The reason for all these protestations from the Lord is that when Isaiah prophesied and when Jeremiah prophesied and when Christ prophesied and when His Christ prophesies, men then and men now do not want to hear the Truth, His Truth. We are, in effect, telling the Lord what He will do with the work of His hands, and He is having no part of that. So, He is posing to us… “Concerning the works of My hands command ye me?”…’we who cannot even foretell the future of His sons.

The truth proclaimed by all of God’s true prophets is that our flesh is a sinful beast which has rebelled against every word of Christ and was made to be taken and destroyed:

Ecc 3:18  I said in mine heart concerning the estate of the sons of men, that God might manifest them, and that they might see that they themselves are beasts.

Luk 6:46  And why call ye me, Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say?

Why did the Lord make men to be beasts first? He wants us to know why He first made us as such:

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

2Pe 2:12  But these, as natural brute beasts, made to be taken and destroyed, speak evil of the things that they understand not; and shall utterly perish in their own corruption; 

Adam and all people are not dying because we have all sinned. The opposite is true. We all sin because we are dying; we sin because we are “marred… corruptible… beasts”, and we are of that composition “not willingly, but by reason of Him who subjected [us to vanity] in hope [while yet] in the Potter’s hand” (Jer 18:4). It is for that reason that it can indeed be said:

Rom 5:12  Wherefore, as by one [“marred “] man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned:

The destruction of the Lord’s nations of Israel and Judah by the kings of Assyria and Babylon respectively was prophesied well in advance of the actual events by the Lord’s prophets Isaiah and Jeremiah. The Lord calls Nebuchadnezzar “My servant” (Jer 27:6), and Cyrus is called “My shepherd… Mine anointed” (Isa 44:28 and 45:1). Just as Abraham was reproved by Pharaoh for denying his own wife (Gen 12:13-19), Israel and Judah were also reproved by the pagan kings of Assyria and Babylon, and the Lord’s hypocritical people who had turned their backs on Him did not appreciate the Lord’s prophets, Isaiah and Jeremiah, telling them that the inevitable judgment was coming. Christ’s Christ is still prophesying that the nations of this world, within and without, are facing these words today:

Jer 25:31  A noise shall come even to the ends of the earth; for the LORD hath a controversy with the nations, he will plead with all flesh; he will give them that are wicked to the sword, saith the LORD .

Joe 3:13  Put ye in the sickle, for the harvest is ripe: come, get you down; for the press is full, the fats overflow; for their wickedness is great.
Joe 3:14  Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision: for the day of the LORD is near in the valley of decision.
Joe 3:15  The sun and the moon shall be darkened, and the stars shall withdraw their shining.
Joe 3:16  The LORD also shall roar out of Zion, and utter his voice from Jerusalem; and the heavens and the earth shall shake: but the LORD will be the hope of his people, and the strength of the children of Israel.

“The sun and the moon shall be darkened.” The Lord withdraws His light before He judges us within, but then, when ‘judgment begins at the house of God’ (1Pe 4:17), we become “His voice from Jerusalem” to judge and purify our heavens (Heb 9:23). ‘The Lord Himself becomes our hope and our strength’.

The Christ of Christ (Joh 20:21) is ‘Jerusalem from whence the Lord’s voice is heard’ (Rev 3:12). Christ’s Christ proclaims this very same message today. We proclaim His words to be fulfilled within first, but afterward they will be fulfilled without, and it is as inevitable today as it was in the days of Isaiah and Jeremiah. Christ Himself foretold the destruction of the temple and the misery about to befall His own people, His own disciples and the Jews also:

Luk 19:41  And when he was come near, he beheld the city, and wept over it,
Luk 19:42  Saying, If thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day, the things which belong unto thy peace! but now they are hid from thine eyes.
Luk 19:43  For the days shall come upon thee, that thine enemies shall cast a trench about thee, and compass thee round, and keep thee in on every side,
Luk 19:44  And shall lay thee even with the ground, and thy children within thee; and they shall not leave in thee one stone upon another; because thou knewest not the time of thy visitation.

The Lord’s physical temple was destroyed in 70 A.D., but it must also be “laid even with the ground” within us, as our “man of sin” is destroyed with the brightness of His coming” (2Th 2:3-12).

It has all been written in the Lord’s book for each of us, and it is He who is working it “all… after the counsel of His own will”:

Job 23:13  [And] he is in one mind, …who can turn him? and what his soul desireth, even that he doeth.
Job 23:14  For he performeth the thing that is appointed for me: and many such things are with him.

He has determined that He will return and rebuild His own temple:

Act 15:15  And to this agree the words of the prophets; as it is written,
Act 15:16  After this I will return, and will build again the tabernacle of David, which is fallen down; and I will build again the ruins thereof, and I will set it up:
Act 15:17  That the residue of men might seek after the Lord, and all the Gentiles, upon whom my name is called, saith the Lord, who doeth all these things.
Act 15:18  Known unto God are all his works from the beginning of the world. 

It is all “His works”. It is all “the work of His hands”, of which we have no right to demand anything. We are but clay in His hands. That should comfort and encourage us all.

That is how our study ends today. The Lord assures us His will is being done in all things. Cyrus is a pagan king, but just as the first Adam is a type of the man of sin and at the same time a type of “the last Adam”, Christ, the same is true of Cyrus. He, too, is a type of Christ, and Christ will build His temple:

Isa 45:12  I have made the earth, and created man upon it: I, even my hands, have stretched out the heavens, and all their host have I commanded.
Isa 45:13  I have raised him [Cyrus, a type of Christ] up in righteousness, and I will direct all his ways: he shall build my city, and he shall let go my captives, not for price nor reward, saith the LORD of hosts.

This is what Christ tells us in the New Testament:

Mat 16:18  And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.

It is Christ who is building His church, and this is one of the names He has given His church:

Rev 3:12  Him that overcometh will I make a pillar in the temple of my God, and he shall go no more out: and I will write upon him the name of my God, and the name of the city of my God, which is new Jerusalem, which cometh down out of heaven from my God: and I will write upon him my new name.

It is “He that overcomes” who will be given to rule this world with Christ and His Christ, the “New Jerusalem”, and it is this city which Cyrus, in type and shadow, will build:

Rev 21:2  And I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.

In our next study we will see where here in Isaiah the Lord has informed us “every knee shall bow, and every tongue shall confess to God” (Rom 14:11):

Isa 45:14  Thus saith the LORD, The labour of Egypt, and merchandise of Ethiopia and of the Sabeans, men of stature, shall come over unto thee, and they shall be thine: they shall come after thee; in chains they shall come over, and they shall fall down unto thee, they shall make supplication unto thee, saying, Surely God is in thee; and there is none else, there is no God.
Isa 45:15  Verily thou art a God that hidest thyself, O God of Israel, the Saviour.
Isa 45:16  They shall be ashamed, and also confounded, all of them: they shall go to confusion together that are makers of idols.
Isa 45:17  But Israel shall be saved in the LORD with an everlasting salvation: ye shall not be ashamed nor confounded world without end.
Isa 45:18  For thus saith the LORD that created the heavens; God himself that formed the earth and made it; he hath established it, he created it not in vain, he formed it to be inhabited: I am the LORD ; and there is none else.
Isa 45:19  I have not spoken in secret, in a dark place of the earth: I said not unto the seed of Jacob, Seek ye me in vain: I the LORD speak righteousness, I declare things that are right.
Isa 45:20  Assemble yourselves and come; draw near together, ye that are escaped of the nations: they have no knowledge that set up the wood of their graven image, and pray unto a god that cannot save.
Isa 45:21  Tell ye, and bring them near; yea, let them take counsel together: who hath declared this from ancient time? who hath told it from that time? have not I the LORD? and there is no God else beside me; a just God and a Saviour; there is none beside me.
Isa 45:22  Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth: for I am God, and there is none else.
Isa 45:23  I have sworn by myself, the word is gone out of my mouth in righteousness, and shall not return, That unto me every knee shall bow, every tongue shall swear.
Isa 45:24  Surely, shall one say, in the LORD have I righteousness and strength: even to him shall men come; and all that are incensed against him shall be ashamed.
Isa 45:25  In the LORD shall all the seed of Israel be justified, and shall glory.

Is God Sovereign Over Our Will?

Hi Again,

I very much appreciate that you mentioned you realize I am extremely busy, but I still want to answer every honest truth-seeking e-mail I receive, and this one seems to be such an e-mail. As I mentioned to you in our very first exchange, I myself struggled for two long years with the very thoughts you express in your e-mails. I was very upset at the thought of having no free will, and felt as you do that if that were the case, then I really do not matter much, and I am nothing more than a puppet on a set of God’s strings to be manipulated as He sees fit. But as I continued to search the scriptures, and as I applied the keys to the kingdom in doing so, I began to see that whether I could understand or appreciate it the facts of the scriptures are that “who [the Lord] wills He hardens and who He will He shows mercy”, and that all of this was decided “before the world began”.

In time the Lord gave me to ‘lean not to my own understanding’, and to accept His very clear words that “it is [He] who is working in me both to will and to do of His good pleasure”, and that my salvation and the salvation of all men “is not of Him that wills, nor of him that runs, but  of God that shows mercy” or hardens in this age. Either way, it is all of God and “not of him that wills”. I notice below you reference that very verse (Rom 9:16) and infer from that verse that we have free will, when the very opposite is the very point the spirit is making.

Rom 9:16  So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy.

You seem to be simply seeking to know what is the mind of God, so I will ask you to contrast “it is not of him that wills” with your words:

“I agree that no scripture says “has a free will” but likewise nowhere does it says “you do not have a free will”, it only says that God’s will is supreme, cannot be resisted – when God chooses to do that.” [End quote]

What does “not of him that wills” mean if it is not “you do not have a free will” that is independent of the will of God? Just look at what precedes the words “So then it is not of him that wills nor of him that runs, but [it is] of God that shows mercy”.

Here is what precedes the words “So then…”:

Rom 9:9  For this is the word of promise, At this time will I come, and Sara shall have a son.
Rom 9:10  And not only this; but when Rebecca also had conceived by one, even by our father Isaac;
Rom 9:11  (For the children being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works [not of man’s will], but of him that calleth;)
Rom 9:12  It was said unto her, The elder shall serve the younger.
Rom 9:13  As it is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated.
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.

Rebecca and Isaac, just like Abraham and Sarah before them, willed of their own to have a son. But God wanted them to know that He does nothing after the counsel of our will, so Rebecca was barren until the time appointed of God for her to have children. Her and Isaac’s so called ‘free will’ didn’t even come into the equation, for the very purpose of teaching us:

Rom 9:16  So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that [either] sheweth mercy [or else “hardens”].

Nothing that happened was “by the will of the flesh nor by the will of man, but [by the will] of God”. That is what the scriptures teach, but look at how that doctrine is introduced to us:

Joh 1:12  But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name:

As always the scriptures do exactly what they are intended to do to those who are “not given eyes to see” them in the “line upon line and precept upon precept, here a little and there a little” way in which we are told they are deliberately written for the express purpose of causing us to “fall backward, be broken and snared and taken”:

Isa 28:9  Whom shall he teach knowledge? and whom shall he make to understand doctrine? them that are weaned from the milk, and drawn from the breasts.
Isa 28:10  For precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line; here a little, and there a little:
Isa 28:11  For with stammering lips and another tongue will he speak to this people.
Isa 28:12  To whom he said, This is the rest wherewith ye may cause the weary to rest; and this is the refreshing: yet they would not hear.
Isa 28:13  But the word of the LORD was unto them precept upon precept, precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line; here a little, and there a little; that they might go, and fall backward, and be broken, and snared, and taken.

The Lord teaching in parables was for that very same reason and for that same purpose. His parables were never designed to make the meaning of His teachings clearer. The exact opposite is true until this very day:

Mat 13:9  Who hath [been given, vs 11] ears to hear, let him hear.
Mat 13:10  And the disciples came, and said unto him, Why speakest thou unto them [the multitudes who come to Christ until this very day] in parables?
Mat 13:11  He answered and said unto them, Because it is given unto you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it is not given.
Mat 13:12  For whosoever hath, to him shall be given, and he shall have more abundance: but whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken away even that he hath.
Mat 13:13  Therefore speak I to them in parables: because they seeing see not; and hearing they hear not, neither do they understand.
Mat 13:14  And in them is fulfilled the prophecy of Esaias, which saith, By hearing ye shall hear, and shall not understand; and seeing ye shall see, and shall not perceive:
Mat 13:15  For this people’s heart is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes they have closed; lest at any time they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and should understand with their heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them.
Mat 13:16  But blessed are your eyes, for they see: and your ears, for they hear.
Mat 13:17  For verily I say unto you, That many prophets and righteous men have desired to see those things which ye see, and have not seen them; and to hear those things which ye hear, and have not heard them.

My e-sword has the subhead “The Purpose of The Parables”, and yet not one Sunday school or Sabbath school teacher in a thousand has been given eyes to see the words right here before their eyes. Those are the Lord’s own words with which He tells us He has blinded our eyes and has stopped our ears from understanding His message. Here we have the doctrine of Christ Himself telling us that it is not to given any of us at first to see what the Lord is telling us all: “It is not given to [the multitudes of Christians] to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven”, and that is the very purpose for Christ’s parables. But it is the false doctrine of  ‘mankind’s free will’ which keeps us from seeing the Truths which are throughout scripture very clearly declaring to us “it is not of him that wills… but of God…” (Rom 9:16). It is God who works our will and our actions for His good pleasure (Php 2:12-13), the preparations of the heart and the answer of the tongue are from the Lord (Pro 16:1), and He makes all things for Himself including the wicked man within us for the day of evil within us (Pro 16:4).

Was there any doubt in God’s mind that Israel might choose to accept their Savior and not crucify Him? There was about as much chance of that happening as there was of Adam and Eve choosing of their own will to be obedient to the Lord’s commandment not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, when God had already “called us in [the slain] Christ before the world began”, and already had Christ “slain from the foundation of the world”:

2Ti 1:9  Who hath saved us, and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works [free will], but according to his own purpose [“His own will”, Eph 1:11] and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began, 

Tit 1:2  In hope of eternal life, which God, that cannot lie, promised before the world began;

Rev 13:8  And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him, whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.

Now let the scriptures demonstrate how the truth of the total sovereignty of God is hidden right out in plain sight. Let’s go back to John 3:12 where it seemed to be saying that we must receive Christ of our own free will before we can become the sons of God. Here is where we left off:

Joh 1:12  But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name:

That sure sounds like the only people who “become the sons of God” are those who “receive him”, and there is no doubt that is true. The only people who believe on Christ will be those who “receive Him”. But where in John 1:12 are we told that those who ‘receive Christ’ and are “given the power to become the sons of God” do so of their own free will? The answer is that manifestly it is simply not there. That verse does not say that at all. It is our preconceived false doctrines, what Ezekiel calls our “idols of the heart” (Eze 14:1-9), which deceive us into making that verse say, “As many as [of their own free will] receive Him, to them gave He power to become the sons of God, even to them who [of their own free will] believe on His name.” That false doctrine blinds our eyes from the truth of the very next verse of scripture:

Joh 1:13  Which were born, [“become the sons of God] not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.

So there is just one more verse saying that our salvation is not of our will, which you [and me, too, at my own time] have told others that it doesn’t say. Here are your own words:

I agree that no scripture says “has a free will” but likewise nowhere does it says “you do not have a free will”, it only says that God’s will is supreme, cannot be resisted – when God chooses to do that.” (End Quote)

“When God chooses to do that?” Well, if God’s will is supreme and cannot be resisted – “when God chooses to do that”, then we need to ask, “How often are we told He ‘chooses to do that'”? With whom and with which things does He tell us that His will cannot be resisted?” Here are the scriptures:

2Ch 20:6  And said, O LORD God of our fathers, art not thou God in heaven? and rulest not thou over all the kingdoms of the heathen? and in thine hand is there not power and might, so that none is able to withstand thee?

If nations and rulers cannot withstand the will of God, how much less can we as individuals? So what or which things exactly is God, as you say, “choos[ing to demonstrate to us ‘that [His] will is supreme?'”

Here is the answer to that question:

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:

Our will is not even a consideration to a God who is “working all things after the counsel of His own will.”  No, the Lord is not paranoid of Himself because He “is working all things after the counsel of His own will”, nor when He tells us He repents of making man, bringing Israel up out of Egypt, anointing King Saul, etc:

Gen 6:6  And it repented the LORD that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart.

Exo 32:14  And the LORD repented of the evil which he thought to do unto his people.

Jdg 2:18  And when the LORD raised them up judges, then the LORD was with the judge, and delivered them out of the hand of their enemies all the days of the judge: for it repented the LORD because of their groanings by reason of them that oppressed them and vexed them.

1Sa 15:35  And Samuel came no more to see Saul until the day of his death: nevertheless Samuel mourned for Saul: and the LORD repented that he had made Saul king over Israel.

The point being made every time we read ‘the Lord repented’ is that He has given mankind an evil experience for the very purpose of demonstrating to us the sinfulness of our dying composition as “the first man Adam”, a marred vessel of clay with the law of sin firmly placed “within [our] members [by the] one Lawgiver who is able to save and to destroy… after the counsel of His own will.”

It is not my intention to challenge you, knowing you are exactly where the Lord has you, but it is my purpose and commission to show you what the Lord blinded me from seeing for over 45 years of my own life. In all of those years I felt exactly as you express in these e-mails. I thank God that He has mercifully seen fit to open my eyes and ears to see and to hear the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, which blessing is not given to the multitudes of Christians who believe on Christ but do not abide in His word.

Now, let’s examine what comes after the words “So then” in:

Rom 9:16  So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy.

Will we find something in the words following this verse which will in any way lead us to believe that mankind has been given a will that is independent of God’s will? I do not think that is what we are about to read, but let’s read on:

Rom 9:17  For the scripture saith unto Pharaoh, Even for this same purpose [Pharaoh’s destruction and the destruction of Egypt, all symbolizing Adam as the Lord’s marred vessel of clay] 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 [You and me] wilt say then unto me, Why doth he yet find fault? For who hath resisted his will? 

Romans 9:19 perfectly summarizes all of your questions and all of my questions and the feelings of all mankind concerning what the scriptures teach about God making all things for Himself, yes, even the wicked, such as Pharaoh, and placing “the law of sin in [our] members” and “working all things after the counsel of His own will” without any mention anywhere in scripture that He has to deal with our fabled free will. We are even actually plainly told that our will is in His hands to be worked as He wills:

Php 2:12  Wherefore, my beloved, as ye have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.
Php 2:13  For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure.

I quoted verse 12 for all my life, as proof positive that we have free will, and I was not able to see verse 13 because for all those years I was “not given to see the mysteries of the kingdom of God” (Mat 13:10-15).

I also quoted John 1:12 as further proof we have free will, totally blinded to the very next verse stating the exact opposite of what I was forcing upon verse 12:

Joh 1:12  But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name:
Joh 1:13  Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.

As you do in this e-mail, I, too, quoted this verse in the exact same way you quote it as proof that Christ had His own will that was not worked by His Father:

“John 10:18 No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down.” (End quote)

Just like you, I simply could not see the entire verse which actually in its entirety says:

Joh 10:18  No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This commandment have I received of my Father.

I do not for one moment think you deliberately left of the last half of that verse. I know I never deliberately did such a thing. The truth is that until we are given eyes that see and ears that hear, a person could put Romans 9:16 right in front of our eyes, slap us in the face and tell us to read this: “It is not of him that wills!!!”, and we still would not be able to see it because the Lord Himself has “given us eyes that see but do not perceive, and ears that hear but do not understand” (Mat 13:10-15, and Eze 14:1-9) and:

Rom 11:8  (According as it is written, God hath given them the spirit of slumber, eyes that they should not see, and ears that they should not hear;) unto this day. )

Christ actually went to great lengths to let us all know that everything He said and did was only what His Father gave Him to say and to do:

Joh 8:28  Then said Jesus unto them, When ye have lifted up the Son of man, then shall ye know that I am he, and that I do nothing of myself; but as my Father hath taught me, I speak these things.
Joh 8:29  And he that sent me is with me: the Father hath not left me alone; for I do always those things that please him.

So yes, like Adam and Eve, like Joseph’s brothers, and like Pharaoh, and like all of us, we all have a “will of man” which is contrary to the will of God, but the scriptures tell us plainly that it is all being “worked after the counsel of His own will”, and nothing is ever done which is outside of Him working “all things” in that way.

So what is the answer of the scriptures to our challenge to God that He has no right to complain if He really is working all things after the counsel of His own will? Here is your question in the email you sent me today:

“how can God be angry or sad at what man does when everything man does arises from God’s will?” (End Quote)

My own flesh rebels against and does not like how the scriptures answer your question, but it cannot be denied that this is His own answer to us when we tell God He has no right to be angry or sad at what man does when everything man does arises from God’s 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?
Rom 9:22  What if God, willing to shew his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction:
Rom 9:23  And that he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy, which he had afore prepared unto glory,

“Why have you made me thus” would certainly include being made with a law of sin within our members to later be called ‘our own lusts which entice us’. Yes, indeed, that verse in James does sound like we have our own lusts, but the scriptures have already told us that when we sin “it is not I that do it, but sin that is in my members.” As Joseph told his ten brothers, “It was not you that sent me here [sold Joseph into slavery in Egypt] but God” and he told them that after twice telling his brothers, “You [chose to] sell me into Egypt.”

So God really is “working all things after the counsel of His own will” (Eph 1:11) not just some things or most things but “all things”, and it is all for the purpose of saving all who are in Adam, for the very reason that God has made us sin for the purpose of humbling us and saving all men from their sins:

Ecc 1:13 I applied my heart to inquiring and exploring by wisdom concerning all that is done under the heavens: it is an experience of evil Elohim has given to the sons of humanity to humble them by it. (CLV)

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 to come unto the knowledge of the truth.

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 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. 

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.

God has “before ordained [that] as in Adam all die, so in Christ shall all be made alive” (1Co 15:22). He is accomplishing this “every man in His own order”, and that order is “Christ the firstfruits, afterward they that are Christ’s at His coming” having already been judged and having already been put through His fiery words of judgment in this age, being promised they “will not be hurt of the second death” (Rev 2:11, Rev 20:6) because they were given to “die daily” (1Co 15:31) and be “crucified with Christ” (Gal 2:20) in this age, and having already been judged in this age (1Pe 4:17), so as to avoid the resurrection of judgment (Joh 5:27-29), and the great white throne judgment, also known as “the second death” of the second group of mankind who have not yet been judged, nor have yet died to their old man while in this age and must yet do so in the “lake of fire/second death, in which all men of all time will be “be made alive” in Christ.

Here is the plan:

1Co 15:22  For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.
1Co 15:23  But every man in his own order: Christ the firstfruits; afterward they that are Christ’s at his coming.
1Co 15:24  Then cometh the end, when he shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father; when he shall have put down all rule and all authority and power.
1Co 15:25  For he must reign, till he hath put all enemies under his feet.
1Co 15:26  The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.
1Co 15:27  For he hath put all things under his feet. But when he saith all things are put under him, it is manifest that he is excepted, which did put all things under him.
1Co 15:28  And when all things shall be subdued unto him, then shall the Son also himself be subject unto him that put all things under him, that God may be all in all.

“God [being] all in all” is the goal, and God will not be denied by any man’s will.  “As in Adam all die, even so  in Christ shall all be made alive.”

“The wages of sin is death” so if mankind really did have free will, then none of these promises of “every man” being “made alive… in Christ” could be true because “it is not in man to direct his steps”.

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. 

No ‘free will’ in that verse of scripture, and add to that verse the fact that God has given man a heart that is deceitful above all things:

Jer 17:9  The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?

Fortunately for mankind, he has not been given free will and “all in Adam” will “in Christ… be made alive… [because] He is the propitiation for our sins [the sins of God’s elect “firstfruits”] but not for our only, but also for the sins of the whole world” (1Jo 2:2).

I have covered most of your queries in this e-mail directly and any that I have not covered here I will deal in my commentaries within your e-mail below.  All the scriptures which appear to indicate that we have a will of our own which is not controlled by a God who is “working all things after the counsel of His own will” are intended to appear as they do for the purpose of answering us “after the idols of our own heart” just as we are told:

Eze 14:1  Then came certain of the elders of Israel unto me, and sat before me.
Eze 14:2  And the word of the LORD came unto me, saying,
Eze 14:3  Son of man, these men have set up their idols in their heart, and put the stumblingblock of their iniquity before their face: should I be enquired of at all by them?
Eze 14:4  Therefore speak unto them, and say unto them, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Every man of the house of Israel that setteth up his idols in his heart, and putteth the stumblingblock of his iniquity before his face, and cometh to the prophet; I the LORD will answer him that cometh according to the multitude of his idols;
Eze 14:5  That I may take the house of Israel in their own heart, because they are all estranged from me through their idols.
Eze 14:6  Therefore say unto the house of Israel, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Repent, and turn yourselves from your idols; and turn away your faces from all your abominations.
Eze 14:7  For every one of the house of Israel, or of the stranger that sojourneth in Israel, which separateth himself from me, and setteth up his idols in his heart, and putteth the stumblingblock of his iniquity before his face, and cometh to a prophet to enquire of him concerning me; I the LORD will answer him by myself:
Eze 14:8  And I will set my face against that man, and will make him a sign and a proverb, and I will cut him off from the midst of my people; and ye shall know that I am the LORD.
Eze 14:9  And if the prophet be deceived when he hath spoken a thing, I the LORD have deceived that prophet, and I will stretch out my hand upon him, and will destroy him from the midst of my people Israel.
Eze 14:10  And they shall bear the punishment of their iniquity: the punishment of the prophet shall be even as the punishment of him that seeketh unto him;

What kind of a deal is that? “If the prophet be deceived… I the Lord have deceived that prophet and I will stretch out my hand upon him … and they shall bear their punishment?”

Our flesh does not like such words, which are simply God’s ways. Nevertheless, this is the way He is:

Rom 9:11  (For the children being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works [our will], but of him that calleth;)
Rom 9:12  It was said unto her, The elder shall serve the younger.
Rom 9:13  As it is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated.
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? 

God does not answer to us, we answer to Him. How can anyone read that God had decided before the children were even born, never having decided of their supposed “free will” whether to serve Him, that He hated Esau and loved Jacob? The whole point being made here is that we do not have a will free of God, and that every day of our lives are written in His book before any of those days come along:

Psa 139:16  Thine eyes did see mine unformed substance; And in thy book they were all written, Even the days that were ordained for me, When as yet there was none of them.
Psa 139:17  How precious also are thy thoughts unto me, O God! How great is the sum of them! (ASV)

Our days are symbolically all laid out in God’s symbolic ‘book’ “When as yet there was none of them”. No free will here!

Here below now  is your e-mail which I will answer paragraph by paragraph. Your words and the scriptures you quote are in italics and indented:

“Thank you Mike,

The problem here is we have no definition of “free will” nor have you provided one – philosophers have explored this subject for thousands of years and there’s no consensus on what the term means.”

I have no interest in anything but the scriptures, and the scriptures declare clearly that mankind has indeed been given a carnal mind with a will which opposes God’s will and “cannot be subject to the law of God”. The scriptures never say man does not have a will. So you will search high and low, and you will never find where I have ever said, ‘Mankind does not have a will’. Mankind does have a will, but it is a caused will, and this is what the scriptures tell us about the will which God has given to mankind:

Rom 8:7  Because the carnal mind [the natural mind of mankind] is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be.
Rom 8:8  So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God. [No hint here of mankind having a will that is free to choose to please God]

So mankind is not free to choose to obey His Creator. Rather he “cannot please God” because his natural carnal mind, given Him by His Creator “is not subject to the law of God neither indeed can be”.

If mankind is free to choose to obey God, then why are we told “the carnal mind… is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be“? So mankind indeed has a will, but it is not free. The natural will of all of mankind must be rebellious against the law of God by God’s own design.

Considering what we are told about ourselves in the previous chapter, it is super clear that we have absolutely no hope of being saved if that salvation depended upon our own carnally minded will:

Rom 7:17  Now then it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me.
Rom 7:18  For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not.
Rom 7:19  For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do.
Rom 7:20  Now if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me.
Rom 7:21  I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me.
Rom 7:22  For I delight in the law of God after the inward man:
Rom 7:23  But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members.
Rom 7:24  O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?
Rom 7:25  I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin. 

In the e-mail you sent me today you say:

“I’m not questioning scripture only your dogma about free will, how can God be angry or sad at what man does when everything man does arises from God’s will?

“This is a simple question for you surely?” (End Quote)

You sign off with, “Sincerely” so I am taking you at your word that you simply “sincerely” want to know what the scriptures say about whether we are given to make decisions and choices which are free from God’s will. Since you are “not questioning scripture”, can I assume that you agree with the holy spirit that when you and I sin “it is not [we] who are sinning”? Can I assume that you agree with the holy spirit that Joseph’s brothers’ decision and choice to sell him into Egypt as a slave was not really their decision or choice but God’s?

Gen 45:4  And Joseph said unto his brethren, Come near to me, I pray you. And they came near. And he said, I am Joseph your brother, whom ye sold into Egypt.
Gen 45:5  Now therefore be not grieved, nor angry with yourselves, that ye sold me hither: for God did send me before you to preserve life.
Gen 45:6  For these two years hath the famine been in the land: and yet there are five years, in the which there shall neither be earing nor harvest.
Gen 45:7  And God sent me before you to preserve you a posterity in the earth, and to save your lives by a great deliverance.
Gen 45:8  So now it was not you that sent me hither, but God: and he hath made me a father to Pharaoh, and lord of all his house, and a ruler throughout all the land of Egypt.

Please answer those two questions so I can know that you really are not taking issue with the scriptures.

Is not the statement, “it was not you, but God…” the same as “it is not I, but sin that dwells in me”? If you and I can simply say, Amen!! to those two scriptures, then our contention evaporates into the air, and we are both of the same mind that the Lord really has “predestined” all things and He really is “working all things after the counsel of His own will”, which really is what the scriptures teach from Genesis to Revelation.

The holy spirit goes out of its way to make that very point:

Eph 1:3  Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ:
Eph 1:4  According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love:
Eph 1:5  Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will,
Eph 1:6  To the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved.
Eph 1:7  In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace;
Eph 1:8  Wherein he hath abounded toward us in all wisdom and prudence;
Eph 1:9  Having made known unto us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure which he hath purposed in himself:
Eph 1:10  That in the dispensation of the fulness of times he might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth; even in him:
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:
Eph 1:12  That we should be to the praise of his glory, who first trusted in Christ.
Eph 1:13  In whom ye also trusted, after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation: in whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that holy Spirit of promise,
Eph 1:14  Which is the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, unto the praise of his glory. 
Eph 1:15  Wherefore I also, after I heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus, and love unto all the saints,
Eph 1:16  Cease not to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers;
Eph 1:17  That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him:
Eph 1:18  The eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that ye may know what is the hope of his calling, and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints,
Eph 1:19  And what is the exceeding greatness of his power to us-ward who believe, according to the working of his mighty power,
Eph 1:20  Which he wrought in Christ, when he raised him from the dead, and set him at his own right hand in the heavenly places,
Eph 1:21  Far above all principality, and power, and might, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come:
Eph 1:22  And hath put all things under his feet, and gave him to be the head over all things to the church,
Eph 1:23  Which is his body, the fulness of him that filleth all in all.

All that God is doing is being done “according to His good pleasure which He has purposed in Himself“.

Ephesians one reflects the tone of all scripture as the words of a God whose sovereignty is without question:

Isa 45:5  I am the LORD, and there is none else, there is no God beside me: I girded thee, though thou hast not known me:
Isa 45:6  That they may know from the rising of the sun, and from the west, that there is none beside me. I am the LORD, and there is none else.
Isa 45:7  I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things.

This is not a ‘sometimes over some things’ statement.  These words are speaking of everything all the time or else they mean nothing at all.

“If by “free will” you mean I have no ability to make choices, no ability to generate independent thoughts, then I’m afraid the scripture does not support you here, there are numerous scriptures that indicate conflict – spiritual conflict – between man and God but if all thoughts, decisions and actions are driven by God’s will alone then God is in conflict with himself surely?”

I have gone to great lengths to demonstrate that I do not believe that we do not make choices. We do make choices every day. We must all “work out our own salvation” and make decisions and choices every day “with fear and trembling”. But as the scriptures so abundantly demonstrate with the story of Joseph, and every other story in scripture, all of our choices are caused choices, in which the Lord is working both our will and our actions after the counsel of His own will (Eph 1:11) and His good pleasure. His Words, not mine:

Php 2:12  Wherefore, my beloved, as ye have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.
Php 2:13  For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure. 

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:

You have mentioned this in an earlier email where you ask me:

“And on what basis can we be judged? if I am judged and found wanting then it surely is not “I” that is found wanting but God since God’s will is what caused my actions?” (End Quote)

I see your point clearly. It was my own point for most of my life until I was given to simply accept the Words of the spirit telling me clearly that even my sins were not mine. They, too, are a work of God via a law of sin which He has placed within my members which gives me a will contrary to God’s will. So, yes, the scriptures agree with you, “It surely is not “I” that is found wanting”. It is the way God has made us with the law of sin in our members that is found wanting. Is that not the exact same message of these verses of scripture?:

Rom 7:17  Now then it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me.
Rom 7:18  For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not.
Rom 7:19  For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do.
Rom 7:20  Now if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me.
Rom 7:21  I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me.
Rom 7:22  For I delight in the law of God after the inward man:
Rom 7:23  But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. [By God’s design] 
Rom 7:24  O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?
Rom 7:25  I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin. 

Either we are ‘captives of the law of sin’, or we have ‘free will’, but it cannot be both ways, and we cannot say both, ‘It is not I that do it’, and at the same time claim ‘I did that of my own free will’. We cannot have it both ways, and the scriptures make it super clear in Romans 9 that “it is not of him that wills… but [it is] of God… that shows mercy or hardens… after the counsel of His own will”.

Now if, as James tells us:

Jas 4:12  There is one lawgiver, who is able to save and to destroy: who art thou that judgest another?

Surely neither of us will argue that Satan created and sustains this law of sin in our members. “There is [but] one lawgiver” and that ‘one lawgiver’ is God. God Himself confesses to having made a “marred… vessel of clay” for the express purpose of destroying it and making it anew, “as it seemed good to the Potter [that “one lawgiver”] to make it”.

Jer 18:4  And the vessel that he made of clay was marred in the hand of the potter: so he made it again another vessel, as seemed good to the potter to make it.
Jer 18:5  Then the word of the LORD came to me, saying,
Jer 18:6  O house of Israel, [​you and me] cannot I do with you as this potter? saith the LORD. Behold, as the clay is in the potter’s hand, so are ye in mine hand, O [​you and ​me] house of Israel.

There is no ‘free will’ in any of those verses.

That “new vessel” will be “raised a spiritual body” (1Co 15:44), but in the meantime it will demonstrate that the “very good… first man Adam” was never intended to be the finished product, and that giving that first man Adam a carnal mind with a will that is contrary to God’s will was all a part of the Lord’s plan from “before the world began”. So yes, in that way, the Lord has indeed created for Himself an adversary, and we will all at first say “why does He yet find fault” because no one can resist His will. We will all first ask Him, ‘Why did you make me carnally minded and unable to do anything other than resist your will if you do not want me to do so, and what right then do you have to judge me for doing what you have made me to do???’  That is what you and I and all men say when confronted with the fact that God hates our old man before he is born, “having done neither good nor evil”, and He is going to save our new man whom He has predestined to be saved. The holy spirit anticipated our frustration and answers your question in this way:

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?
Rom 9:22  What if God, willing to shew his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction:
Rom 9:23  And that he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy, which he had afore prepared unto glory,

Why are we not informed, right here at this point, that God gave us a will that is free to choose to obey and that if we do not do so, then it is not His fault? But that is not what the holy spirit tells us. This entire chapter is dedicated to denying there is any will other than God’s will, and that we are all first made “vessels of dishonor… vessels of wrath fitted to destruction” for one reason and for that one reason only… “Hath not The Potter power over the clay…?”

Verse 19 is where you are at this time, and I completely understand, having been there myself. I struggled and argued vociferously for two years that, “Yes, God is sovereign, but I also have a free will.” I likened it to being a dog on a leash.

But in time I came to se what verse 16 is saying to us:

Rom 9:16  So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy.

I have never denied that we have a carnal-minded will and that there is indeed war in our heavens, and that we are admonished to “work out our own salvation”. What you are struggling to understand or struggling to accept is the very next verse telling us why we work out our own salvation with fear and trembling, and it has nothing to do with a fabled ‘free will’ in any of us:

Php 2:12  Wherefore, my beloved, as ye have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.
Php 2:13  For it is God which worketh in you [“the clay”] both to will and to do of his good pleasure.

If the Lord grants you to accept that everything you will, and everything you actually do, even your sins, are actually God Himself “working in you both to will and to do of His good pleasure” (Php 2:12-13), then you will find it a lot easier to accept and to appreciate the trials of life, and to love your enemies, whom He has made to be your enemies, because you will now understand that they are also ruled over by God at this very moment, being caused by Him to be your adversary.

Dan 4:17  This matter is by the decree of the watchers, and the demand by the word of the holy ones: to the intent that the living may know that the most High ruleth in the kingdom of men, and giveth it to whomsoever he will, and setteth up over it the basest of men.

After His resurrection Christ told His disciples:

Mat 28:18  And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. 

I used to wonder, “If that is true why is He not using His power to straighten out this world?” I thank God that He has given me to understand that it is His will at this time for this world to resist Him and to demonstrate clearly just why it is that “flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, neither does corruption inherit incorruption” (1Co 15:50). God’s “very good… first man Adam” is nothing more than a very good adversary whom God Himself equipped with the law of sin and death in his members, whose very purpose is to rebel against his Maker, and give God the occasion He is seeking to “destroy death” in us now, and then at the end of the “little season” which follows the millennium, destroy death in all men:

Rev 20:1  And I saw an angel come down from heaven, having the key of the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand.
Rev 20:2  And he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the Devil, and Satan, and bound him a thousand years,
Rev 20:3  And cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal upon him, that he should deceive the nations no more, till the thousand years should be fulfilled: and after that he must be loosed a little season.
Rev 20:4  And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them: and I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God, and which had not worshipped the beast, neither his image, neither had received his mark upon their foreheads, or in their hands; and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years.
Rev 20:5  But the rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished. This is the first resurrection.
Rev 20:6  Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection: on such the second death hath no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with him a thousand years.

The Defeat of Satan

Rev 20:7  And when the thousand years are expired, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison,
Rev 20:8  And shall go out to deceive the nations which are in the four quarters of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together to battle: the number of whom is as the sand of the sea.
Rev 20:9  And they went up on the breadth of the earth, and compassed the camp of the saints about, and the beloved city: and fire came down from God out of heaven, and devoured them. [This is the end of physical death, and the beginning of the end of spiritual death
Rev 20:10  And the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are, and shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever.
Rev 20:11  And I saw a great white throne, and him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away; and there was found no place for them.
Rev 20:12  And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works.
Rev 20:13  And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them: and they were judged every man according to their works.
Rev 20:14  And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death.
Rev 20:15  And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire.

In the end we will all be very grateful that we were not given a carnal will free of God’s will and free from Him working both our will and what we do to “His good pleasure” (Php 2:12-13). In the end we will be very grateful that He will judge us for what He worked in us to His pleasure because:

Isa 26:8  Yea, in the way of thy judgments [“beginning now at the house of God”, 1Pe 4:17, and at the “white throne… judgment”], O LORD, have we waited for thee; the desire of our soul is to thy name, and to the remembrance of thee.
Isa 26:9  With my soul have I desired thee in the night; yea, with my spirit within me will I seek thee early: for when thy judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness.

God’s judgments upon the carnal minds which He has given us, produce neither eternal torment nor eternal death. What His judgments do produce is: “When your judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness” because all of God’s judgments are “chastening of the Lord” (1Co 11:32; Heb 12:6).

“I agree that no scripture says “has a free will” but likewise nowhere does it says “you do not have a free will”, it only says that God’s will is supreme, cannot be resisted – when God chooses to do that.

We are made in God’s image, God can create so can we, God has a will, so do we, God can make decisions, so can we else we are NOT made in God’s image.

If we have no free will – that is no ability to inherently choose and make decisions then what are we?”

You say, “Nowhere does it says “you do not have a free will”,  and you say that after reading this verse along with all those that precede and  follow it, all of which make clear that our days are all predestined “before the world began… while we were in our mothers womb…”:

Rom 9:16  So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that hath mercy.

“Him” in this verse is ‘mankind’. In light of what is said before and after this verse will you “sincerely” write back and tell me this verse is not denying that mankind has a will that is free from God’s will? We have already dealt with what is said before this verse. God hated Esau and He loved Jacob while they were in their mother’s womb having done neither good nor evil, and He tells us this for the specific purpose of letting us know that what He is doing is not dependent upon our will but is all being done “after the counsel of His own will”.

Rom 9:11  (For the children being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works[of mankind], but of him [the Lord] that calleth;) 

After verse 16, “It is not of [mankind] that wills… but of God that shows mercy” He then tells us He hardened Pharoah’s heart, typifying our hardened hearts, for the express purpose of destroying him and his country so all the world would know that His will is superior to our rebellious carnal will.

The story of Pharaoh is what comes immediately after telling us:

Rom 9:16  So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that hath 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? 

“Why does He yet find fault” again is the same question you keep floating:

“I’m not questioning scripture only your dogma about free will, how can God be angry or sad at what man does when everything man does arises from God’s will?”

“This is a simple question for you surely?” (End Quote)

It is manifested that we simply do not like the way God thinks and the fact that He is calling all the shots. So like you and me and all men we ask the question the spirit anticipated we would ask. It is not good to question the fact that God has our days already written in His book and that He loves our new man and hates our carnal-minded old man before we are even born and when as yet there were none of our days (Psa 139:16 ASV and many other translations)

It appears to me that in the context of verse 16, the express purpose for telling us “It is not of him that wills… but of God” is to make the very point that mankind does not have a rebellious carnal will which is free from God’s will for mankind.

“Prov 16:9 The heart of man plans his way, but the Lord establishes his steps. 

How can one “plan” without an ability to choose and make decisions? It does not say here that “God plans for you” it says “man plans”.”

We could say ‘The desperately wicked heart of man plans his way, but the Lord establishes his steps’, and it would be just as true. The Biblical answer to this argument, and to all arguments attempting to limit God’s sovereignty over the carnal will of men, is the story of Joseph and His brothers, as I have pointed out before. You say: “It says “man plans… How can one “plan” without an ability to choose and make decisions?” (End Quote)

Once again this is how man can make plans thinking his plans are of his own free will only to discover that all his connivings were actually given to him by a messenger of God:

Gen 45:4  And Joseph said unto his brethren, Come near to me, I pray you. And they came near. And he said, I am Joseph your brother, whom ye sold into Egypt.
Gen 45:5  Now therefore be not grieved, nor angry with yourselves, that ye sold me hither: for God did send me before you to preserve life.
Gen 45:6  For these two years hath the famine been in the land: and yet there are five years, in the which there shall neither be earing nor harvest.
Gen 45:7  And God sent me before you to preserve you a posterity in the earth, and to save your lives by a great deliverance.
Gen 45:8  So now it was not you that sent me hither, but God: and he hath made me a father to Pharaoh, and lord of all his house, and a ruler throughout all the land of Egypt.

Neither Joseph nor I have ever denied that we have the “ability to choose and make decisions”.  What the scriptures do deny here and throughout scripture is that those choices and decisions are not caused choices and decisions. All our choices are caused by a God who has “all of our days written in His book” before we are even born (Psa 139:16), and He has predestinated all things after the counsel of His own will, not ours (Eph 1:11):

Eph 1:10  That in the dispensation of the fulness of times he might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth; even in him:
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: 

Here is another very graphic example that answers your question:

How can one “plan” without an ability to choose and make decisions? It does not say here that “God plans for you” it says “man plans”.”

This story demonstrates how God worked with King Ahab’s heart for the purpose of showing us how “man’s plans” are really God’s plans, even as we think we are making and executing decisions which are completely free of any influence from God:

1Ki 22:1  And they continued three years without war between Syria and Israel.
1Ki 22:2  And it came to pass in the third year, that Jehoshaphat the king of Judah came down to the king of Israel.
1Ki 22:3  And the king of Israel said unto his servants, Know ye that Ramoth in Gilead is ours, and we be still, and take it not out of the hand of the king of Syria?
1Ki 22:4  And he said unto Jehoshaphat, Wilt thou go with me to battle to Ramothgilead? And Jehoshaphat said to the king of Israel, I am as thou art, my people as thy people, my horses as thy horses.
1Ki 22:5  And Jehoshaphat said unto the king of Israel, Enquire, I pray thee, at the word of the LORD to day.
1Ki 22:6  Then the king of Israel gathered the prophets together, about four hundred men, and said unto them, Shall I go against Ramothgilead to battle, or shall I forbear? And they said, Go up; for the Lord shall deliver it into the hand of the king.
1Ki 22:7  And Jehoshaphat said, Is there not here a prophet of the LORD besides, that we might enquire of him?
1Ki 22:8  And the king of Israel said unto Jehoshaphat, There is yet one man, Micaiah the son of Imlah, by whom we may enquire of the LORD: but I hate him; for he doth not prophesy good concerning me, but evil. And Jehoshaphat said, Let not the king say so.
1Ki 22:9  Then the king of Israel called an officer, and said, Hasten hither Micaiah the son of Imlah.
1Ki 22:10  And the king of Israel and Jehoshaphat the king of Judah sat each on his throne, having put on their robes, in a void place in the entrance of the gate of Samaria; and all the prophets prophesied before them.
1Ki 22:11  And Zedekiah the son of Chenaanah made him horns of iron: and he said, Thus saith the LORD, With these shalt thou push the Syrians, until thou have consumed them.
1Ki 22:12  And all the prophets prophesied so, saying, Go up to Ramothgilead, and prosper: for the LORD shall deliver it into the king’s hand.
Micaiah Prophesies Against Ahab
1Ki 22:13  And the messenger that was gone to call Micaiah spake unto him, saying, Behold now, the words of the prophets declare good unto the king with one mouth: let thy word, I pray thee, be like the word of one of them, and speak that which is good.
1Ki 22:14  And Micaiah said, As the LORD liveth, what the LORD saith unto me, that will I speak.
1Ki 22:15  So he came to the king. And the king said unto him, Micaiah, shall we go against Ramothgilead to battle, or shall we forbear? And he answered him, Go, and prosper: for the LORD shall deliver it into the hand of the king.
1Ki 22:16  And the king said unto him, How many times shall I adjure thee that thou tell me nothing but that which is true in the name of the LORD?
1Ki 22:17  And he said, I saw all Israel scattered upon the hills, as sheep that have not a shepherd: and the LORD said, These have no master: let them return every man to his house in peace.
1Ki 22:18  And the king of Israel said unto Jehoshaphat, Did I not tell thee that he would prophesy no good concerning me, but evil?
1Ki 22:19  And he said, Hear thou therefore the word of the LORD: I saw the LORD sitting on his throne, and all the host of heaven standing by him on his right hand and on his left.
1Ki 22:20  And the LORD said, Who shall persuade Ahab, that he may go up and fall at Ramothgilead? And one said on this manner, and another said on that manner.
1Ki 22:21  And there came forth a spirit, and stood before the LORD, and said, I will persuade him.
1Ki 22:22  And the LORD said unto him, Wherewith? And he said, I will go forth, and I will be a lying spirit in the mouth of all his prophets. And he said, Thou shalt persuade him, and prevail also: go forth, and do so.
1Ki 22:23  Now therefore, behold, the LORD hath put a lying spirit in the mouth of all these thy prophets, and the LORD hath spoken evil concerning thee.
1Ki 22:24  But Zedekiah the son of Chenaanah went near, and smote Micaiah on the cheek, and said, Which way went the Spirit of the LORD from me to speak unto thee?
1Ki 22:25  And Micaiah said, Behold, thou shalt see in that day, when thou shalt go into an inner chamber to hide thyself.
1Ki 22:26  And the king of Israel said, Take Micaiah, and carry him back unto Amon the governor of the city, and to Joash the king’s son;
1Ki 22:27  And say, Thus saith the king, Put this fellow in the prison, and feed him with bread of affliction and with water of affliction, until I come in peace.
1Ki 22:28  And Micaiah said, If thou return at all in peace, the LORD hath not spoken by me. And he said, Hearken, O people, every one of you.

I hope that answers your question. King Ahab and all his prophets were as convinced and you and I have been that we have a will that is free of God’s influence in our day to day lives. Nothing is further from the truth. “The preparations of his heart and the answer of his tongue [to Micaiah was] from the Lord”, while he and all of his lying prophets thought they were making and executing their own decisions, thoughts and plans when all along these two verses were the actual Truth of what was actually taking place in the spirit realm, which ministers to the physical realm.”

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

Pro 21:1  The king’s heart is in the hand of the LORD, as the rivers of water: he turneth it whithersoever he will. 

Yes, man does indeed plan, just as you pointed out to me in this same 16th chapter of Proverbs:

Pro 16:9  A man’s heart deviseth his way: but the LORD directeth his steps.

But “the sum of [God’s] Word” is that even “The king’s heart is in the hand of the LORD, as the rivers of water: he turneth it whithersoever he will.”

Your question was:

“How can one “plan” without an ability to choose and make decisions? It does not say here that “God plans for you” it says “man plans”.”

Yes, it does say “man plans”, but “the sum of [His] Word” reveals that even when Ahab first began to think about taking Ramothgilead back from the Syrians, the very inception of that thought “was from the Lord”. ‘The king’s heart through the influence of “an evil spirit from the Lord” (1Sa 16:14) was being turned by the Lord like rivers of water’ (Pro 21:1). That means that even the king’s heart, and the hearts of all his lying prophets, and the hearts of all men, are actually doing exactly what will fulfill a greater plan, the Lord’s plan for  mankind.

You continue:

John 7:17 If anyone’s will is to do God’s will, he will know whether the teaching is from God or whether I am speaking on my own authority.

This makes clear that it is possible for our will to differ from God’s else there’d be no “If” at the start?”

Same answer as above. God first gives us all a naturally rebellious carnal mind which “is not subject to the law of God neither indeed can be”, and then, if He wills, and when He wills He drags us to Himself and gives us to obey, all “after the counsel of His own will”, all the while making it appear that we chose of our own will to sell our brother into Egypt. “Whom He wills He has mercy [makes to be obedient] and whom He will He hardens [makes to be rebellious]” all of Him, and “not of him that wills”:

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.

As we are plainly told:

Pro 21:1  The king’s heart is in the hand of the LORD, as the rivers of water: he turneth it whithersoever he will. 

“Deut 30:19 Therefore choose life, that you and your offspring may live, loving the Lord your God, obeying his voice and holding fast to him, for he is your life and length of days, that you may dwell in the land that the Lord swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give them.” 

To whom is this directive to “choose” directed? It cannot be to the man reading if man has no ability to choose, it must be directed at God (by your reasoning) so God is telling himself to choose, this is absurd I think.

God is not “telling Himself to choose”, what we have seen from His Word is that He tells all men to “choose life” even as He “turns their heart” to do otherwise, in order to “work all things after the counsel of His own will”:

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:

I completely understand how frustrating those words are to our carnal minds. But they are The Truth, and they certainly are not absurd.

You say:

“James 1:13 But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire.

So humans have “their own desire” this seems to me be saying we do have free will.

No, not at all. “Own desire” obviously means to you, that “we do have free will”, but we have demonstrated over and over that mankind’s ‘heart’s desire’ “is in the hand of the Lord [who] turns it wherever He wills” just as Ahab was “tempted when he was lured and enticed by his own desire” to take Ramothgilead. But the Biblical truth is that even our “own desire” is in the hand of the Lord to be “turned” to do what will fulfill His plan:

Pro 21:1  The king’s heart is in the hand of the LORD, as the rivers of water: he turneth it whithersoever he will.

You say:

“John 10:18 No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down.

This indicates that Christ – a man at that time – possessed his “own accord”  – will. How can Christ have authority, his own accord if there is only one will in the universe? This verse clearly tells us that Christ and the Father are two wills else what is meant by authority? How can the Father give Christ authority if such authority is nothing more than doing what the Father wills anyway?

If we and Ahab have our own will, then Christ certainly also had His own will. But Proverbs 21:1 is just as true for Christ as it is for us:

Pro 21:1  The king’s [Christ’s] heart is in the hand of the LORD, as the rivers of water: he turneth it whithersoever he will. 

We have already amply demonstrated how Christ went out of His way to tell us He sought only to do the will of His Father:

Joh 5:30  I can of mine own self [will] do nothing: as I hear, I judge: and my judgment is just; because I seek not mine own will, but the will of the Father which hath sent me.

Christ knew the truth of Pro 21:1. He indeed had a fleshly will, but He knew it was in His Father’s hand to turn where ever His Father willed.

You say:

“John 3:16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.

This tells us that “perish” is an alternative to “eternal life” and one must “believe”. If those who disbelieve do so only because God has willed them to disbelieve then telling us what he does in John 3:16 serves no purpose, yet we know all scripture has purpose.

What John 3:16 tells us is this:

Mat 22:14  For many are called, but few are chosen.

But neither of those verses are “the sum of thy Word” (Psa 119:160). A very unfamiliar verse to most Christians is the very next verse of John 3:

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.

Through God’s judgments “the world [will] be saved”, because all who are judged “will learn righteousness”:

Isa 26:8  Yea, in the way of thy judgments, O LORD, have we waited for thee; the desire of our soul is to thy name, and to the remembrance of thee.

Isa 26:9  With my soul have I desired thee in the night; yea, with my spirit within me will I seek thee early: for when thy judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness.

The judgments of God are a work of His chastening grace, and the greatest work of His chastening grace is this “judgment”:

Rev 20:11  And I saw a great white throne, and him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away; and there was found no place for them.
Rev 20:12  And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works.
Rev 20:13  And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them: and they were judged every man according to their works.
Rev 20:14  And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death.
Rev 20:15  And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire. 

“And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire” is just another way of saying, ‘Whoever was not in the first resurrection was cast into the lake of fire/second death’ at this “great white throne… judgment”.

The word ‘fire’ in scripture generally typifies the Word of God:

Deu 33:2  And he said, The LORD came from Sinai, and rose up from Seir unto them; he shined forth from mount Paran, and he came with ten thousands of saints: from his right hand went a fiery law for them.

Isa 10:17  And the light of Israel shall be for a fire, and his Holy One for a flame: and it shall burn and devour his thorns and his briers in one day;

Jer 5:14  Wherefore thus saith the LORD God of hosts, Because ye speak this word, behold, I will make my words in thy mouth fire, and this people wood, and it shall devour them.

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. [Including the lake of the fire of God’s word administered by His elect who have His Word in their mouths]

Rev 11:4  These are the two olive trees, and the two candlesticks standing before the God of the earth.
Rev 11:5  And if any man will hurt them, fire proceedeth out of their mouth, and devoureth their enemies: and if any man will hurt them, he must in this manner be killed.

It is God’s elect, typified by the three Hebrew children, who alone will be comfortable in the fiery burnings of the lake of fire, and it will be through them that all those in the lake of fire will be judged and brought to be all in all with God:

Isa 33:14  The sinners in Zion are afraid; fearfulness hath surprised the hypocrites. Who among us shall dwell with the devouring fire?

who among us shall dwell with everlasting burnings?

Isa 33:15  He that walketh righteously, and speaketh uprightly; he that despiseth the gain of oppressions, that shaketh his hands from holding of bribes, that stoppeth his ears from hearing of blood, and shutteth his eyes from seeing evil;

The lake of fire is not the resurrection to strive to be in, but it will nevertheless be the greatest single harvest of souls for the Lord’s purpose and His Work with mankind.

You say:

“Rom 9:16 So then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy.
There it says plainly “human will“.

My words are meant for your edification. It is not my intention to checkmate you or anyone. But your comment here on this very clear statement demonstrates how effective God is at blinding the carnal mind of men. The Lord plainly states here that His work is not dependent upon human will, and your comment is “There it say human will” as if the word ‘not’ were not there. As I said earlier, when God blinds a person we can take this verse and put it in front of them and slap them in the face and say, ‘There it is, read it with your own eyes’ and they simply cannot see it because “God has given them eyes that they cannot see and ears that they cannot hear unto this day”

Rom 11:8  (According as it is written, God hath given them the spirit of slumber, eyes that they should not see, and ears that they should not hear;) unto this day.

“Isa 55:8 For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord.

Yet you have written elsewhere that every thought we have is from God, this scripture refutes that surely?”

No, not in the least! This scripture complements what the Lord has revealed about the human will, which He has placed within every man through His own “law of sin and death” which He has placed within our members as discussed above. Paul was inspired to tell us that even our sins are ‘not I but sin that dwells in my members’. So according to the Lord our sins are not our sins but are the result of the law of sin which God has placed within us, “that is in [our] flesh” (Rom 7:17-18). What this verse, Isaiah 55:8, does is to verify the truth of this verse:

Rom 8:7  Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be.

And once again, this is all true because all human desires are “in the hand of the Lord”:

Pro 21:1  The king’s heart is in the hand of the LORD, as the rivers of water: he turneth it whithersoever he will. 

You say:

“Rev 22:11 Behold, I am coming soon, bringing my recompense with me, to repay everyone for what he has done.

But if nobody has free will and all thoughts, choices etc are really God’s doing then the phrase “he has done” makes no sense because whatever “he” has done was done by God not him!

I won’t go on but could as you well know.“

My position is that your claim that humans have “no free will” is not scripturally sound. You go beyond what is written and represent God’s superior will over our will as being God’s will is our will at all times.

Your argument here does not at all reflect what the scriptures teach concerning the rebellious carnal will God has given all of us, and how He works with our will. What your words here demonstrate is the fact that you simply do not yet appreciate the truths that are in all of these verses below concerning how God as The Master Potter is working all things we do, even our will and our actions to His good pleasure:

Php 2:12  Wherefore, my beloved, as ye have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.
Php 2:13  For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure. 

If indeed you are truly given to have no issue with the scriptures, then you will read these two verses telling us to work out our own salvation and at the same time explaining that what we will and do are really all God working in us, and you will be grateful to be informed of these very revealing words and you will very happily agree that our will and our actions are the work of the Lord, and the preparations of our  heart and the answer of our tongue is of the Lord (Pro 16:1), and:

Pro 21:1  The king’s heart is in the hand of the LORD, as the rivers of water: he turneth it whithersoever he will.

And:

Jer 17:9  The heart [which the Lord turns where He wills] is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?

And:

Jer 18:4  And the vessel that he made of clay [first carnal minded man Adam] was marred in the hand of the potter: so he made it again another vessel, as seemed good to the potter to make it.
Jer 18:5  Then the word of the LORD came to me, saying,

Jer 18:6  O house of Israel, cannot I do with you as this potter? saith the LORD. Behold, as the clay is in the potter’s hand, so are ye in mine hand, O house of Israel.

None of us likes those words because we all know that clay has no will of its own and without the sum of God’s Word it sounds like that verse is denying that we even have a rebellious carnal mind that is not subject to the law of God. But that is not the point being made. The point Jeremiah 18:6 is making is the same point the Lord makes in Proverbs 21:1, above. God has our very desires in His hand and turns them in any direction He wills. This is wonderful revelation which should cause us to work out our own salvation with fear and trembling knowing it is God who is working both our will and our actions to His good pleasure and for our good because:

Rom 8:28  And we know that all things [which God is “working after the counsel of His own will“, Eph 1:11] work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose. 

And:

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

And:

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

I could go on and on and on with God’s Word demonstrating that our hearts and our carnal rebellious way are all in the Lord’s hands being turned wherever He wills, but this is enough for now.

You say:

“All of the scriptures above are not at ease with your doctrine “we do not have free will” I think you must review your position here or explicitly define what YOU MEAN by “free will”.”

All of God’s words are “at ease” with each other, but no verse is ever intended to be understood in a stand-alone manner because we are told:

Psa 119:160  The sum of thy word is truth; And every one of thy righteous ordinances endureth for ever. (ASV)

2Pe 1:20 knowing this first, that no prophecy of scripture at all is becoming its own explanation. (CLV)

I have gone to great lengths to give to you God’s own words in which He had already anticipated that the scriptural statement… “It is not of him that wills but of God” would cause us all to say, ‘Why does He yet find fault because no one can resist His will and if God’s will is superior over our will [it is the same as saying God’s will is our will at all times”.

No, that is not a Biblical conclusion. There is no doubt at all that God’s will is superior to our will. Nor is there any scriptural doubt that He works our will and our actions “both to will and to do of His good pleasure”:

Php 2:12  Wherefore, my beloved, as ye have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.
Php 2:13  For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure.

If you truly have no issue with the scriptures, you will say amen to those verses and to this verse:

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: 

As I said toward the beginning of this e-mail, if you can assure me that you actually agree with Php 2:12-13 and Eph 1:11, then our differences will evaporate into the air.

You say:

“Thank you for replying.

PS: This email was not written by me but originated from God – this is the implication of your own stated view here…“

Yes, indeed. Neither your e-mail nor my​ ​answers caught our Lord by surprise. They did indeed​ both​ “originate from God, and were both​ ​written in our own individual books in which God has already written all of our days before​ ​any of our days ever were. That is not ‘my own stated view’. It is the Lord’s Himself who has told us:

Psa 139:16  Thine eyes did see mine unformed substance; And in thy book they were all written, Even the days that were ordained for me, When as yet there was none of them.

Your brother who struggles with you to know the mind of God.

Mike

The Prophecy of Isaiah - Part 72 Discussion

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Isa 19: 8-10 The Fishers... Shall Mourn

Isa 19:8  The fishers also shall mourn, and all they that cast angle into the brooks shall lament, and they that spread nets upon the waters shall languish.
Isa 19:9  Moreover they that work in fine flax, and they that weave networks, shall be confounded.
Isa 19:10  And they shall be broken in the purposes thereof, all that make sluices and ponds for fish.

It is very important that you and I remember that we, too, are called "fishers of men":

Mar 1:17  And Jesus said unto them, Come ye after me, and I will make you to become fishers of men.

So rest assured that when this judgment is fulfilled upon the 'fishers' of Egypt and of Babylon, God's elect will be caught up in the hatred of the ten horns on the beast which 'will hate the whore and will burn her with fire and will eat her flesh':

Dan 2:13  And the decree went forth that the wise men should be slain; and they sought Daniel and his fellows to be slain.

Rev 17:16  And the ten horns which thou sawest upon the beast, these shall hate the whore, and shall make her desolate and naked, and shall eat her flesh, and burn her with fire.
Rev 17:17  For God hath put in their hearts to fulfil his will, and to agree, and give their kingdom unto the beast, until the words of God shall be fulfilled.

As we often do for the purpose of supplying context, we need to begin our study by repeating the last few verses of our last study:

Isa 19:5  And the waters shall fail from the sea, and the river shall be wasted and dried up.
Isa 19:6  And they shall turn the rivers far away; and the brooks of defence shall be emptied and dried up: the reeds and flags shall wither.
Isa 19:7  The paper reeds by the brooks, by the mouth of the brooks, and every thing sown by the brooks, shall wither, be driven away, and be no more.

"The water... the river... and the brooks [of Egypt] shall [all] be emptied and dried up... and everything sown by the brooks, shall wither, be driven away, and be no more", and now we continue to be shown the dreadful results of the Lord's judgments against the great harlot within us when He begins to dry up the waters of Egypt. These 'waters of Egypt' are as nourishing to those who love Egypt as the "rivers of living waters" are to those who believe on Christ.

Joh 7:38  He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.

Christ's fiery words are "rivers of living water" which nourish and feed our new man, while at the same time those words and doctrines of Christ burn up all the "wood, hay and stubble" which are the doctrines of our old man. But the doctrines of our old man nourish and feed our old man's kingdom with all of its lies and falsehoods, and it is the rejection of all the lies of Egypt and Babylon which are the emptying and drying up of the waters of Egypt and the Euphrates River.

Here is the New Testament version of the message Isaiah is delivering to us when he tells us that the waters of Egypt and everything that depends upon those waters "shall wither and be driven away and be no more". This prophecy here is Isaiah 19 is that very same message we are given in the book of the Revelation of Jesus Christ which we must "read... hear and keep" (Rev 1:3):

Rev 17:15  And he saith unto me, The waters which thou sawest, where the whore sitteth, are peoples, and multitudes, and nations, and tongues.
Rev 17:16  And the ten horns which thou sawest upon the beast, these shall hate the whore, and shall make her desolate and naked, and shall eat her flesh, and burn her with fire.
Rev 17:17  For God hath put in their hearts to fulfil his will, and to agree, and give their kingdom unto the beast, until the words of God shall be fulfilled.

I have said many times, "Every time the harlot butts heads with the beast, she, the harlot (all the religions of mankind), will come out on the short end of the stick", and I base that statement upon these verses in Isaiah 19 and these verses here in Revelation 17:15-17.

Just last Tuesday we saw this prophecy outwardly play out once again before our very eyes. The senatorial race in the state of Alabama was between a fundamentalist Christian and a very secular man who places the health of a fabled sick physical planet above the needs of the people who live on this planet. The secular candidate is pro-abortion, and manifestly anti-Biblical.

Alabama is considered a religious state, and yet, by God's design, its people elected a secular, anti-Christian as its senator. That race was being watched all around the world, and the whole world saw the harlot once again being rejected by those who only yesterday were her lovers and were partakers of the waters of Egypt which give Egypt her nourishment. There were many reasons given for why things happened as they did, the number one reason being the sexual harassment charges against the fundamentalist Christian in the race. Those charges no doubt contributed to the outcome, but one thing that has not been given the credit it deserves for why fundamental Christianity always fails is the fact that those in that camp teach that a loving heavenly Father will burn you in eternal flames of hell if you do not believe on their version of Jesus Christ.

Notice that the secular media will always ask a Christian political candidate if he believes that Jews and Muslims are going to hell if they do not believe on Christ. Pointing out that the Christian candidate's doctrine teaches that, and getting that candidate to admit it, is enough to destroy the candidacy of most Christian politicians, never mind the fact that the Jews and Muslims feel the very same way about Christians. In a secular world, secular candidates for public office have the advantage. The concept of "as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive" through fiery judgment is never even spoken by any of the principles who make up this harlot system, which is coming to be hated by the "ten kings" who represent the perfection of our flesh, and who are beginning to "hate the whore and... make her desolate and naked, and [to] eat her flesh, and burn her with fire". The 'fire' of these ten carnal kings is not the fire of God's Word. Rather it is the words and laws which are the 'law for the lawless', all of which teaches an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. These ten kings symbolize the secular world which hates those who "cast angle into the brooks and they that spread nets upon the [unsuspecting] waters" of mankind. The ten kings of Revelation 17 represent the multitudes who are beginning to see through the hypocrisy of their favorite whore, and they are given by Christ Himself the work of rejecting her lies and turning on her and destroying her. That is the meaning of the drying up of both the waters of Egypt and the drying up of the Euphrates.

So now we will continue with the revelation of how this will all go down before we turn our backs on the great harlot:

Isa 19:8  The fishers also shall mourn, and all they that cast angle into the brooks shall lament, and they that spread nets upon the waters shall languish.
Isa 19:9  Moreover they that work in fine flax, and they that weave networks, shall be confounded.
Isa 19:10  And they shall be broken in the purposes thereof, all that make sluices and ponds for fish.

The "waters of Egypt" are what gives Egypt its life, just as "the rivers of Babylon" give life to Babylon. But Christ revealed to us that when we live in darkness and blindness, we don't know we are blind, and when we are living and thriving on the waters of Egypt and "by the rivers of Babylon" (Psa 137:1), according to the scriptures, we actually believe at that time that we have been and are drinking of the waters of life, just as the spiritually blind are totally unaware of their spiritually poor, blind and naked condition:

Joh 9:39  And Jesus said, For judgment I am come into this world, that they which see not might see; and that they which see might be made blind.
Joh 9:40  And some of the Pharisees which were with him heard these words, and said unto him, Are we blind also?
Joh 9:41  Jesus said unto them, If ye were blind, ye should have no sin: but now ye say, We see; therefore your sin remaineth.

Rev 3:17  Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked:
Rev 3:18  I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich; and white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear; and anoint thine eyes with eyesalve, that thou mayest see.

All these phrases: "the fishers... all they that cast angle into the brooks... they that spread nets upon the waters... and... all that make sluices and ponds for fish", are one and all speaking of all the ministers of Babylon who are 'fishing for men', as Christ reveals when He told His own disciples:

Mar 1:17  And Jesus said unto them, Come ye after me, and I will make you to become fishers of men.

However, the rivers of Babylon and the waters of Egypt are not the words of Christ. The rivers of Babylon and the waters of Egypt are the doctrines of the kingdom of our rebellious old man. Those doctrines defy the doctrines of Christ while making a loving heavenly Father, who chastens those He loves for the purpose of improving them and bringing to Himself, into a monster who intends to torment His own creatures in unspeakable, excruciating flames of literal fire for all eternity with no purpose or end in sight. While painting our heavenly Father as such a monster, the "fishers and those that cast angle and spread nets" for the unsuspecting masses of mankind speak "smooth things" like the doctrine of a ten-second sinner's prayer to avoid those eternal flames which will ensnare only those who do not believe all their lies, with which they are constantly feeding their unsuspecting victims. We were all there at one time, and it is only by the sovereign work of God within our lives that our eyes were opened through His fiery judgments, and He made us to understand that it is He who has taken "the whole stay of bread and the whole stay of water" away from all those whom He has caused to turn their backs on Christ and His Words. We learned the exact same lesson of this 19th chapter back in:

Isa 3:1  For, behold, the Lord, the LORD of hosts, doth take away from Jerusalem and from Judah the stay and the staff, the whole stay of bread, and the whole stay of water,
Isa 3:2  The mighty man, and the man of war, the judge, and the prophet, and the prudent, and the ancient,
Isa 3:3  The captain of fifty, and the honourable man, and the counsellor, and the cunning artificer, and the eloquent orator.
Isa 3:4  And I will give children to be their princes, and babes shall rule over them.
Isa 3:5  And the people shall be oppressed, every one by another, and every one by his neighbour: the child shall behave himself proudly against the ancient, and the base against the honourable.

Apparently the removing of the waters of the Lord's Words and 'the people being oppressed, everyone by... his neighbor' come together as a package deal and cannot be separated the one from the other. The reason for this action is that when we turn our back on our heavenly Father, His judgments are certain to come upon us. When we reject His counsel and lean on our own counsel, we simply do not know the way of peace, and inevitably we refuse to discipline our children and we refuse to love our neighbors, much less our enemies.

Lev 19:18  Thou shalt not avenge, nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people, but thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself: I am the LORD.

Deu 20:16  But of the cities of these people, which the LORD thy God doth give thee for an inheritance, thou shalt save alive nothing that breatheth:

Mat 5:43  Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy.
Mat 5:44  But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you;

They that cast angle and spread nets against us are our enemies, and we will and we do resent them when we become aware of how deceived we were by these men. To a greater or lesser degree we all hate her (the whore of Babylon) and burn her with fire simply because we are "yet carnal... babes in Christ" (1Co 3:1-4).

We must get past that resentment because we come to know that none of us are free to do the things we do (Rom 7: 17-23). Knowing that our deception was actually a work of God for our good makes all the difference in the world, and it helps us love those who hate us and those who have taken advantage of our ignorance. Christ even tells us that He spoke in parables "because it is not given [to the multitudes of Christianity] to understand the mysteries of the kingdom of God":

Mat 13:10  And the disciples came, and said unto him, Why speakest thou unto them in parables?
Mat 13:11  He answered and said unto them, Because it is given unto you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it is not given.

Just this week we saw how true those words of our Lord are: "To them it is not given... to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven". This was graphically demonstrated for us when we read that the Pope, the leader of the largest single Christian church on earth, wants to change the wording of 'the Lord's prayer' to make the Lord's words to comport with the Pope's false doctrine that God does not "lead us... into temptation", [He does not] "make us to err", [He does not] "create evil" [and He does not] "work all things after the counsel of His own will".

The Pope and most of those who 'cast their nets upon the waters' want us to believe what they tell us and simply ignore what the inspired Word of God tells us:

Luk 11:4  And forgive us our sins; for we also forgive every one that is indebted to us. And lead us not into temptation; but deliver us from evil.

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.

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

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:

The Pope and most of the harlot daughters of Babylon want you to believe that Satan, the tempter, operates completely independently of the will of God, and that it is Satan who leads us into temptation, not God. That doctrine makes Ephesians 1:11 to be a lie. It makes Matthew 13:11 to be a lie. If Christ does not give to the multitudes the ability to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, then all Satan does in blinding the masses is what God intended for Satan to do, and that is exactly how we see Satan being used of God in Job chapters one and two:

Job 1:9  Then Satan answered the LORD, and said, Doth Job fear God for nought?
Job 1:10  Hast not thou made an hedge about him, and about his house, and about all that he hath on every side? thou hast blessed the work of his hands, and his substance is increased in the land.
Job 1:11  But put forth thine hand now, and touch all that he hath, and he will curse thee to thy face.
Job 1:12  And the LORD said unto Satan, Behold, all that he hath is in thy power; only upon himself put not forth thine hand. So Satan went forth from the presence of the LORD.

Who is calling the shots in this story? Satan says, "Put forth your hand", and the Lord tells Satan, "Behold, all that he hath is in thy power; only upon himself put not forth thine hand."

Satan comes when he is called, and then he does exactly what he is sent by God to do, and he goes not one inch further than what he is sent to accomplish. So who is it who is really tempting Job? Yes, it is true that it is not God Himself, but it is God's messenger who does exactly what he is given to do for God. This whole scene is repeated in chapter two where Satan is commanded to "put forth his hand upon [Job]", but is again told to go no further:

Job 2:4  And Satan answered the LORD, and said, Skin for skin, yea, all that a man hath will he give for his life.
Job 2:5  But put forth thine hand now, and touch his bone and his flesh, and he will curse thee to thy face.
Job 2:6  And the LORD said unto Satan, Behold, he is in thine hand; but save his life.

God works His will through Satan. Satan is nothing more than the Lord's hand, as Satan himself acknowledges.  God works His will through Satan just as He tells us He works His will within us "both to will and to do of His good pleasure:"

Php 2:13  For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure.

Yet we see the leader of the largest Christian church on earth apparently completely unaware of any of this story in Job. Neither can he see these verses of scripture:

Gen 22:1  And it came to pass after these things, that God did tempt Abraham, and said unto him, Abraham: and he said, Behold, here I am.

2Sa 24:1  And again the anger of the LORD was kindled against Israel, and he moved David against them to say, Go, number Israel and Judah.

It was against the law of Moses to number the people without taking a tax of them at the same time.

Exo 30:11  And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying,
Exo 30:12  When thou takest the sum of the children of Israel after their number, then shall they give every man a ransom for his soul unto the LORD, when thou numberest them; that there be no plague among them, when thou numberest them.
Exo 30:13  This they shall give, every one that passeth among them that are numbered, half a shekel after the shekel of the sanctuary: (a shekel is twenty gerahs:) an half shekel shall be the offering of the LORD.

Again we are told exactly how the Lord went about "mov[ing] David" to number the people without requiring a ransom for their souls:

1Ch 21:1  And Satan stood up against Israel, and provoked David to number Israel.

The pattern given to us in the story of Job is how God "works all things after the counsel of His own will". Evil spirits are always themselves sent "from God". They do nothing of themselves, as the Pope and all the daughter harlots of Babylon would have us believe. Notice how clearly this is demonstrated for us in the scriptures:

1Sa 16:14  But the Spirit of the LORD departed from Saul, and an evil spirit from the LORD troubled him.
1Sa 16:15  And Saul's servants said unto him, Behold now, an evil spirit from God troubleth thee.

1Ki 22:23  Now therefore, behold, the LORD hath put a lying spirit in the mouth of all these thy prophets, and the LORD hath spoken evil concerning thee.

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

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?

Will the Pope and all the ministers of Babylon have us to change all these words of God to make them conform to the lying spirit the Lord has placed within their mouths? Like the three Hebrew children, we must make it known that we fear God far more than we fear men or what men can do to us. We must be willing to die for these words:

Deu 4:2  Ye shall not add unto the word which I command you, neither shall ye diminish ought from it, that ye may keep the commandments of the LORD your God which I command you.

Deu 12:32  What thing soever I command you, observe to do it: thou shalt not add thereto, nor diminish from it.

Rev 22:18  For I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book:
Rev 22:19  And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book.

These are the ministers in whose mouths the Lord has placed a lying spirit.

1Ki 22:23  Now therefore, behold, the LORD hath put a lying spirit in the mouth of all these thy prophets, and the LORD hath spoken evil concerning thee.

The Pope and all those who cast angle and spread nets for unsuspecting men will no doubt want to change those words, too, but let's take their lying spirit on directly so we will be able to convict those who deny the words of God.

These ministers will always point to this verse to deceive the vulnerable babes who are not yet given to try the spirits to see whether they are of God (1Jo 4:1):

Jas 1:13  Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he [Greek: hautou, Himself] any man:

We just saw several examples of how the Lord sent evil spirits to trouble King Saul and King Ahab and pronounced evil against both kings. We are even told that it was the Lord who sent Joseph as a slave into Egypt:

Gen 45:5  Now therefore be not grieved, nor angry with yourselves, that ye sold me hither: for God did send me before you to preserve life.

Gen 45:7  And God sent me before you to preserve you a posterity in the earth, and to save your lives by a great deliverance.
Gen 45:8  So now it was not you that sent me hither, but God: and he hath made me a father to Pharaoh, and lord of all his house, and a ruler throughout all the land of Egypt.

If thirteen years as a slave in Egypt were not a trial for Joseph, then nothing is a trial. So we need to understand that the KJV translation of James 1:13 is not a correct translation, because the translators mistranslated the Greek word 'hautou' as "He" instead of "Himself". Here is what that Greek word means:

G848
αὑτοῦ
hautou
how-too'
Contraction for G1438; self (in some oblique case or reflexive relation): - her (own), (of) him (-self), his (own), of it, thee, their (own), them (-selves), they.

So when God sent Joseph as a slave into Egypt by the hand of his own ten brothers, He did so by sending an evil spirit to tempt them to do that evil deed. When the Lord sent all of Job's trials upon him, He did so via Satan. He sent an evil spirit to trouble King Saul, and He sent a lying spirit into the mouths of all of King Ahab's prophets, and He sent Satan to move King David to number the people.

But the key to understanding the Word of God is through "the sum of [His] Word":

Psa 119:160  The sum of thy word is truth; And every one of thy righteous ordinances endureth for ever. (ASV)

What this means is that we must read everything the Lord says about any subject before we formulate doctrine. For example, concerning the offerings made to the Lord, we read this:

Lev 2:11  No meat offering, which ye shall bring unto the LORD, shall be made with leaven: for ye shall burn no leaven, nor any honey, in any offering of the LORD made by fire.

This commandment is reiterated two other times in the law of the offerings.

Lev 6:16  And the remainder thereof shall Aaron and his sons eat: with unleavened bread shall it be eaten in the holy place; in the court of the tabernacle of the congregation they shall eat it.
Lev 6:17  It shall not be baken with leaven. I have given it unto them for their portion of my offerings made by fire; it is most holy, as is the sin offering, and as the trespass offering.

Exo 34:25  Thou shalt not offer the blood of my sacrifice with leaven; neither shall the sacrifice of the feast of the passover be left unto the morning.

But when we read the sum of His Word we find that there is an exception to "no leaven... in any offering of the Lord made by fire" when we read of the firstfruits offering on the day of Pentecost:

Lev 23:16  Even unto the morrow after the seventh sabbath shall ye number fifty days; and ye shall offer a new meat offering unto the LORD.
Lev 23:17  Ye shall bring out of your habitations two wave loaves of two tenth deals: they shall be of fine flour; they shall be baken with leaven; they are the firstfruits unto the LORD.
Lev 23:18  And ye shall offer with the bread seven lambs without blemish of the first year, and one young bullock, and two rams: they shall be for a burnt offering unto the LORD, with their meat offering, and their drink offerings, even an offering made by fire, of sweet savour unto the LORD.

"Ye shall burn no leaven, nor any honey, in any offering of the LORD made by fire". Yet the offering made by fire for the firstfruits unto the Lord "shall be baken with leaven; they are the firstfruits unto the Lord." This offering typifies us if we are given to endure to the end:

Jas 1:18  Of his own will begat he us with the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures.

Rev 14:4 These are they which were not defiled with women; for they are virgins. These are they which follow the Lamb whithersoever he goeth. These were redeemed from among men, being the firstfruits unto God and to the Lamb.

We are the firstfruits to God and the Lamb, and as such we are also what the scriptures call "the Lord['s] ...Christ":

Act 4:26  The kings of the earth stood up, and the rulers were gathered together against the Lord, and against his Christ.

Rev 11:15  And the seventh angel sounded; and there were great voices in heaven, saying, The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of his Christ; and he shall reign for ever and ever.

Rev 12:10  And I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, Now is come salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of his Christ: for the accuser of our brethren is cast down, which accused them before our God day and night.

Christ as our Passover is the first of the firstfruits. He was a spotless sheep "who knew no sin".

2Co 5:21  For the man who knew no sin was made sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in him.

He was never afflicted with the "the leaven of the Pharisees", unlike His body, His Christ, we who have all known sin and have been corrupted by the leaven of the Pharisees. As His firstfruits, we are His witnesses who have known sin and are therefore represented by two loaves offered by fire baked with leaven, unlike any other offering.

The reason I have taken the time to point out this exception is that there is also an exception to the statement that "neither does God himself tempt any man":

Jas 1:13  Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted by God, for God is without temptation of evils, and he himself tempts no man.

We saw how God sent evil spirits and Satan himself to serve as "[His] hand" in Job 1 and 2, and in many other situations where He "made the wicked for the day of evil" (Pro 16:4), and He created and used evil to work "all things after the counsel of His own will" (Eph 1:11). However, there is one exception to that rule, just as there was with the commandment:

Lev 2:11  No meat offering, which ye shall bring unto the LORD, shall be made with leaven: for ye shall burn no leaven, nor any honey, in any offering of the LORD made by fire.

Here is that one exception to the Lord Himself tempting no man:

Gen 22:1  And it came to pass after these things, that God did tempt Abraham, and said unto him, Abraham: and he said, Behold, here I am.
Gen 22:2  And he said, Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah; and offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of.

This trial which the Lord Himself placed upon Abraham was the commandment to offer up his only son as an offering to God, and we are clearly told in this one instance "God did tempt Abraham" to offer up his only son, Isaac, as a burnt offering to God.

This is the only exception to the truth of James 1:13, but it is an exception which is used by those who are not given faith to conclude that the scriptures contradict themselves, which is no more true than the Lord telling Abraham to offer Isaac as a sacrifice and then telling Abraham, "Lay not thine hand upon the lad":

Gen 22:10  And Abraham stretched forth his hand, and took the knife to slay his son.
Gen 22:11  And the angel of the LORD called unto him out of heaven, and said, Abraham, Abraham: and he said, Here am I.
Gen 22:12  And he said, Lay not thine hand upon the lad, neither do thou any thing unto him: for now I know that thou fearest God, seeing thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son from me.
Gen 22:13  And Abraham lifted up his eyes, and looked, and behold behind him a ram caught in a thicket by his horns: and Abraham went and took the ram, and offered him up for a burnt offering in the stead of his son.

God has given those who 'cast angle and spread nets for men' the opportunity to twist His words and to reject them, but He brings us all to see the double-tongued hypocrisy that is the waters of Egypt and Babylon, and in the end the fishers in those waters shall mourn, and they "shall be broken in the purposes thereof".

In our next study we will see that the Lord truly is working all things after the counsel of His own will. We will see that He tells us it is "the Lord [who] has mingled a perverse spirit in the midst of... Egypt":

Isa 19:11  Surely the princes of Zoan are fools, the counsel of the wise counsellors of Pharaoh is become brutish: how say ye unto Pharaoh, I am the son of the wise, the son of ancient kings?
Isa 19:12  Where are they? where are thy wise men? and let them tell thee now, and let them know what the LORD of hosts hath purposed upon Egypt.
Isa 19:13  The princes of Zoan are become fools, the princes of Noph are deceived; they have also seduced Egypt, even they that are the stay of the tribes thereof.
Isa 19:14  The LORD hath mingled a perverse spirit in the midst thereof: and they have caused Egypt to err in every work thereof, as a drunken man staggereth in his vomit.
Isa 19:15  Neither shall there be any work for Egypt, which the head or tail, branch or rush, may do.

The Prophecy of Isaiah - Part 46 Discussion

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Isa 10:1-4  What Will You Do... In The Desolation Which Shall Come From Far?

Isa 10:1  Woe unto them that decree unrighteous decrees, and that write grievousness which they have prescribed;
Isa 10:2  To turn aside the needy from judgment, and to take away the right from the poor of my people, that widows may be their prey, and that they may rob the fatherless!
Isa 10:3  And what will ye do in the day of visitation, and in the desolation which shall come from far? to whom will ye flee for help? and where will ye leave your glory?
Isa 10:4  Without me they shall bow down under the prisoners, and they shall fall under the slain. For all this his anger is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still.

Before we can appreciate the Lord's message in these four verses we must remember the truth we learned from our last study:

Isa 9:19 Through the wrath of the LORD of hosts is the land darkened, and the people shall be as the fuel of the fire: no man shall spare his brother.

We just naturally believe that it is our sins which have blinded us and have darkened our understanding and have caused us to believe all the lies of the churches which confirm that formula. But Isa 9:19 does not say 'Through our sins the land is darkened', rather we are clearly told that our darkened and deceived state is the result of God's wrath, and as we also saw last week, that state of being under God's wrath is a matter of being "shapen in iniquity and [being] conceived in sin":

Psa 51:5  Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me.

There are two verses of scripture which reveal that we are all born under the wrath of God. They do so by revealing that God knew before He ever created Adam and Eve that they would disobey His commandment not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

Here are those two verses:

2Ti 1:9  Who hath saved us, and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began,

Tit 1:2  In hope of eternal life, which God, that cannot lie, promised before the world began;

Obviously, if indeed we were "given... grace... in Christ before the world began", God knew in advance that Adam would disobey His commandment not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. He knew Adam would sin against Him "before the world began" and that Adam and his seed would need a savior to redeem them from their sinful condition.

How could God be so certain that Adam would choose to do exactly what he was forbidden from doing? You and I know that God knew Adam and Eve would disobey Him because He had placed within their  flesh, from the moment of their creation, "the law of sin and death" which guaranteed their disobedience and their iniquity:

Rom 7:17  Now then it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me.
Rom 7:18  For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not.
Rom 7:19  For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do.
Rom 7:20  Now if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me.
Rom 7:21  I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me.
Rom 7:22  For I delight in the law of God after the inward man:
Rom 7:23  But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members.
Rom 7:24  O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?
Rom 7:25  I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin.

Did Adam and Eve deliberately choose to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil? Of course they did! Have any of us ever deliberately chosen to sin against our brother of our Creator? Yes, of course we all have. We are even told:

Isa 59:2  But your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you, that he will not hear.

Jer 5:25  Your iniquities have turned away these things, and your sins have withholden good things from you.

Are not those two verses basically telling us, to paraphrase Isa 9:19, 'Through [your sins against] the LORD of hosts is the land darkened, and the people shall be as the fuel of the fire: no man shall spare his brother'?

The answer is, yes, our iniquities have separated us from God, and Isa 59:2 and Jer 5:25 tell us that we have sinned against God, but, as we have learned, our sins are not really our sins which separate us from God. Rather it is really, as Joseph explained to His brothers concerning their sins against Him after twice telling them that they had chosen to sell him into Egyptian slavery, why they had chosen to do that to him:

Gen 45:4  And Joseph said unto his brethren, Come near to me, I pray you. And they came near. And he said, I am Joseph your brother, whom ye sold into Egypt.
Gen 45:5  Now therefore be not grieved, nor angry with yourselves, that ye sold me hither: for God did send me before you to preserve life.
Gen 45:6  For these two years hath the famine been in the land: and yet there are five years, in the which there shall neither be earing nor harvest.
Gen 45:7  And God sent me before you to preserve you a posterity in the earth, and to save your lives by a great deliverance.
Gen 45:8  So now it was not you that sent me hither, but God: and he hath made me a father to Pharaoh, and lord of all his house, and a ruler throughout all the land of Egypt.

That is the exact same message which Paul gives us when he twice informs us:

Rom 7:17  Now then it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me.
Rom 7:18  For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not.
Rom 7:19  For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do.
Rom 7:20  Now if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me.

So why did Adam and Eve disobey their Creator and eat of the fruit of the tree they were told, "You shall not eat of it"? Was there any way they could possibly have chosen to do otherwise? No, the Truth is that there was no way they could have possibly chosen to do otherwise because "it was not [Adam and Eve who of their own accord ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil] but [it was] sin that dwelt in [them]", because "in [their] flesh dwelt no good thing." No doubt they wanted to please God, but they simply could not do so​, because the truth is that "there [was] no good thing [dwelling] in [them]. Instead, what was dwelling there within them, and in the flesh of all their children, was a "law of sin... in [their] members" which is part and parcel of being "made of clay", made "shapen in iniquity and conceived in sin". You and I are "in Adam", and we are all subject to and are "captive to the law of sin which is in [our] members".

Rom 7:23  But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members.

We are all born as a "vessel of clay... marred in the hand of The Potter" with a carnal mind which just naturally "was shapen in iniquity", "marred in the hand of the Potter", "enmity against God..." captive to the law of sin, which is in our members:

Psa 51:5  Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me.

Jer 18:4  And the vessel that he made of clay was marred in the hand of the potter: so he made it again another vessel, as seemed good to the potter to make it.

Rom 8:7  Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be.

So it is with "the carnal mind [which] is enmity against God" that we are 'shaped' by the Potter from our mother's womb, and as His enemy from birth, this is where we stand in relation to our Creator:

Psa 21:8  Thine hand shall find out all thine enemies: thy right hand shall find out those that hate thee.
Psa 21:9  Thou shalt make them as a fiery oven in the time of thine anger: the LORD shall swallow them up in his wrath, and the fire shall devour them.
Psa 21:10  Their fruit shalt thou destroy from the earth, and their seed from among the children of men.
Psa 21:11  For they intended evil against thee: they imagined a mischievous device, which they are not able to perform.

As clay vessels we are carnally minded, and we simply do not believe on Christ from birth. So we are born under His wrath and must be judged and brought to repentance:

Joh 3:36  He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him.

The point being made in all these inspired statements is that our deception and darkness is not a matter of our choice to sin against our Creator. Rather our choice to sin is through His wrath which is of necessity against our carnal mind which is enmity against God.

Isa 9:19  Through the wrath of the LORD of hosts is the land darkened, and the people shall be as the fuel of the fire: no man shall spare his brother.

Newborns are not mature believers and certainly never will, just naturally, become mature believers in a calling which requires of us to die daily and to be daily "crucified with Christ (1Co 15:31 and Gal 2:20). Because our marred composition of being made carnally minded with natural "enmity against God" (Rom 8:7), we produce our own doctrines to replace those of Christ. His doctrine, which teaches that we are to love our enemies (Mat 5:44), is changed to say 'unless your enemy means you bodily harm, in which case you must blow him away to the glory of God'. Christ taught that all who are faithful to His doctrine "...shall be hated of all men for my name's sake" (Mat 10:22). This also is replaced with our own doctrine which twists His words into teaching that if you tithe faithfully, then you most certainly do not need not "die daily... be crucified with Christ [nor be] hated of all men". Instead we are taught that if we serve God according to the doctrines of Babylon, we will be blessed in this age with physical blessings beyond our ability to receive it.

Which brings us to the first verse of our study today:

Isa 10:1  Woe unto them that decree unrighteous decrees, and that write grievousness which they have prescribed;

All such 'prosperity evangelism' is deception which denies, or at the very least, omits and never mentions the fact that grace chastens us to forsake ungodliness and worldly lusts and to live Godly lives in this present age" (Tit 2:11-12). In the place of "the sum of God's Word" (Psa 119:165), the beast and his father, the great red dragon, quote 'some of God's Words' and twist His Words to make them appeal to our natural mind and our deceitful hearts (Jer 17:7). All such prophets have been given by God to "deceive the whole world" with these lies and half truths, which are nothing less than the doctrines of the great harlot and all of her harlot daughters who "decree unrighteous decrees, and that write grievousness which they have prescribed;"

At first we all come to the Lord's Words and those who teach His Words, with our minds already made up. In the World Wide Church of God, where I met my wife, we shielded ourselves from having to listen to anyone who came to us with anything which contradicted our doctrine by simply saying that if they were not keeping the weekly Sabbath and the Jewish feasts, then there was no way that anything else a person said could possibly be true. That is a perfect example of what the Lord calls 'putting the stumbling block of our iniquity before us and then coming to Him and His Word and His prophets' with our minds already made up. This is what our Lord has to say concerning all the unfaithful, harlotry of the false doctrines of Babylon and all of her harlot daughters:

Eze 14:1  Then came certain of the elders of Israel unto me, and sat before me.
Eze 14:2  And the word of the LORD came unto me, saying,
Eze 14:3  Son of man, these men have set up their idols in their heart, and put the stumblingblock of their iniquity before their face: should I be enquired of at all by them?

An "idol in [our] heart" is a false doctrine into which we are fully invested before we even pick up a Bible. A few popular examples are the false doctrines of the immortality of the soul, its accompanying false doctrine of a triune God, the false doctrine of eternal torment and the false doctrine of God giving all men a will that is free from any influence from God Himself. With all such falsehoods replacing the Truth that God is working all things after the counsel of His own will (Eph 1:11), we then come to the Word of God and to those who know His Word, and when we do so, this is what we must accept as a work which the Lord is doing "after the counsel of His own will".

Eze 14:4  Therefore speak unto them, and say unto them, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Every man of the house of Israel that setteth up his idols in his heart, and putteth the stumblingblock of his iniquity before his face, and cometh to the prophet; I the LORD will answer him that cometh according to the multitude of his idols;

At this point in our "experience of evil" (Ecc 1:13) the Lord actually answers our prayers "according to the idols of [our]... heart." If we think He has not invested anything in our lives and that He is a hard man, then that is exactly how He will manifest Himself to us:

Mat 25:24  Then he which had received the one talent came and said, Lord, I knew thee that thou art an hard man, reaping where thou hast not sown, and gathering where thou hast not strawed:
Mat 25:25  And I was afraid, and went and hid thy talent in the earth: lo, there thou hast that is thine.
Mat 25:26  His lord answered and said unto him, Thou wicked and slothful servant, thou knewest that I reap where I sowed not, and gather where I have not strawed:
Mat 25:27  Thou oughtest therefore to have put my money to the exchangers, and then at my coming I should have received mine own with usury.
Mat 25:28  Take therefore the talent from him, and give it unto him which hath ten talents.
Mat 25:29  For unto every one that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance: but from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath.
Mat 25:30  And cast ye the unprofitable servant into outer darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

"I knew thee that thou art an hard man, reaping where thou hast not sown, and gathering where thou hast not strawed"??? What a self-righteous, contending, condemning slap in the face to a man who has just invested an undeserved "talent" upon us. This is a perfect example of "decreeing unrighteous decrees... writing and prescribing grievousness".

Isa 10:1  Woe unto them that decree unrighteous decrees, and that write grievousness which they have prescribed;

What is the fruit of such a spirit which is willing to condemn God and to maintain its own righteousness? This is the fruit of that spirit:

Isa 10:2  To turn aside the needy from judgment, and to take away the right from the poor of my people, that widows may be their prey, and that they may rob the fatherless!

We see the outward fulfillment of these words as we witness multi-millionaire ministers talking widows out of their rent and grocery money with the promise of great material blessings in return for their gullible naivety. Then they condemn that same gullible lamb for not having enough faith when the rent comes due.

However we simply cannot see ourselves as being needy, poor, fatherless widows in need of judgment. The reason we cannot see these things is that we were born under the wrath of the Lord and blind from our mother's womb:

Joh 9:1  And as Jesus passed by, he saw a man which was blind from his birth.
Joh 9:2  And his disciples asked him, saying, Master, who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he was born blind?
Joh 9:3  Jesus answered, Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents: but that the works of God should be made manifest in him.

This man was born blind "for [our] sakes" (2Co 4:15), "that the works of God should be manifest in him", for your and for my spiritual benefit. As the end of this chapter will demonstrate, we also are blind from birth, but we are totally unaware of our own blindness:

Joh 9:39  And Jesus said, For judgment I am come into this world, that they which see not might see; and that they which see might be made blind.
Joh 9:40  And some of the Pharisees which were with him heard these words, and said unto him, Are we blind also?
Joh 9:41  Jesus said unto them, If ye were blind, ye should have no sin: but now ye say, We see; therefore your sin remaineth.

That is "the works of God [which] should be manifest in" that blind man's life. It was all done "for [our] sakes". But until the day that has been ordained in advance for our healing of our spiritually blinded condition into which we are all born, we continue to think we already 'see', we actually believe that the darkness we live in is the light, and "therefore [our] sin remains", and our judgment still lies ahead of us.

Mat 6:23  But if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness!

So the Lord poses for us this question:

Isa 10:3  And what will ye do in the day of visitation, and in the desolation which shall come from far? to whom will ye flee for help? and where will ye leave your glory?

Let's not fail to see that "the day of visitation [is] the desolation which shall come from far". Being "from far" in its inward application is not to be taken literally. The fact is that God is near every one of us:

Act 17:27  That they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him, and find him, though he be not far from every one of us:
Act 17:28  For in him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also his offspring.

We are bluntly informed that our desolation "comes from [us being spiritually so] far" from our God and His ways:

Psa 119:155  Salvation is far from the wicked: for they seek not thy statutes.

Isa 59:1  Behold, the LORD'S hand is not shortened, that it cannot save; neither his ear heavy, that it cannot hear:
Isa 59:2  But your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you, that he will not hear.
Isa 59:3  For your hands are defiled with blood, and your fingers with iniquity; your lips have spoken lies, your tongue hath muttered perverseness.

That is the occasion and the opportunity which the Lord has given Himself. That is the "far" from which our desolation proceeds into our lives to destroy the kingdom of our old man, the kingdom of the Philistines within us, as revealed to us in the story of why God had Samson to marry a Philistine woman of Timnath:

Jdg 14:1  And Samson went down to Timnath, and saw a woman in Timnath of the daughters of the Philistines.
Jdg 14:2  And he came up, and told his father and his mother, and said, I have seen a woman in Timnath of the daughters of the Philistines: now therefore get her for me to wife.
Jdg 14:3  Then his father and his mother said unto him, Is there never a woman among the daughters of thy brethren, or among all my people, that thou goest to take a wife of the uncircumcised Philistines? And Samson said unto his father, Get her for me; for she pleaseth me well.
Jdg 14:4  But his father and his mother knew not that it was of the LORD, that he sought an occasion against the Philistines: for at that time the Philistines had dominion over Israel.

As we are seeing in this study, the Lord has given Himself "an occasion against" our old man by making him "marred in the hand of the Potter" (Jer 18:4) for the very purpose of pouring out His wrath upon the kingdom of our old man, who He has given "dominion over [us]" by placing the law of sin and death within our members. Therefore the proper order of events is:

Isa 9:19  Through the wrath of the LORD of hosts is the land darkened, and the people shall be as the fuel of the fire: no man shall spare his brother.

I repeat, that is what the spirit tells us through the words of John the baptist:

Joh 3:36  He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him.

Yes, there is no denying that our sins place great distance between our Creator and us, but in the final analysis of scripture, our sins are nothing more than the "occasion", the opportunity the Lord has given Himself to pour out His wrath upon the kingdom of our old man.

Let's look once more at:

Rom 7:17  Now then it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me.
Rom 7:18  For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not.
Rom 7:19  For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do.
Rom 7:20  Now if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me.

There is a law in our members which gives God the right and the opportunity "before the world began" to pour out His wrath upon the fleshly, carnal, rebellious kingdom of our old man (2Ti 1:9 and Tit 1:2). These verses of Romans 7:17-20 are words which our proud flesh just naturally despises, simply because it robs our flesh of even the ability to claim dominion over our sins and rebellions against our Lord. Our sins are not really our sins at all. Rather, they are the product of a law which God Himself placed in the flesh of all men from the very beginning.

This Truth provokes Paul to inform us:

Rom 7:21  I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me.
Rom 7:22  For I delight in the law of God after the inward man:
Rom 7:23  But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members.

We have no free choice in this matter. Where is "free moral agency" in those verses? All of our sins were predestined by Him who is "working all things after the counsel of His own will", not our will (Eph 1:11). All who are granted to see and to know this great Truth will cry out to our heavenly Father along with the apostle Paul:

Rom 7:24  O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?
Rom 7:25  I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin.

So the Truth is that it is:

Rev 16:10  And the fifth angel poured out his vial upon the seat [Greek: thronos -  throne] of the beast; and his kingdom was full of darkness; and they gnawed their tongues for pain,
Rev 16:11  And blasphemed the God of heaven because of their pains and their sores, and repented not of their deeds.

Again, what is the true reason we are in such deep darkness?

Isa 9:19 Through the wrath of the LORD of hosts is the land darkened, and the people shall be as the fuel of the fire: no man shall spare his brother.

It is in our "darkness" that the pain and sores of our torment come upon us. Spiritual 'darkness' is not simply a matter of being deprived of a flashlight or a torch. Spiritual darkness entails believing lies which produce spiritual pain and torment, which "turn [us] aside from judgment" and cause us to blaspheme and condemn our own Lord and to bring us to our wits' end before we are given to see what the Lord Himself is working in our lives:

Psa 119:67  Before I was afflicted I went astray: but now [only after being afflicted] have I kept thy word.

...Which is just the Old Testament way of saying this:

Rev 15:7  And one of the four beasts gave unto the seven angels seven golden vials full of the wrath of God, who liveth for ever and ever.
Rev 15:8  And the temple was filled with smoke from the glory of God, and from his power; and no man was able to enter into the temple, till the seven plagues of the seven angels were fulfilled.

Remember this verse:

Joh 3:36  He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him.

Revelation 15:7-8 demonstrate that the wrath of God simply must precede believing on the Son. It is not as if we can "believe on the Son" and circumvent the wrath of God because the Truth still remains that "...no man was able to enter into the temple, till the seven plagues of the seven angels were fulfilled."

This all accords with the last verse of our study today:

Isa 10:4  Without me they shall bow down under the prisoners, and they shall fall under the slain. For all this his anger is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still.

This is the fifth and final time in this prophecy that we see this phrase "For all this His anger is not turned away..."

Isa 5:25  Therefore is the anger of the LORD kindled against his people, and he hath stretched forth his hand against them, and hath smitten them: and the hills did tremble, and their carcases were torn in the midst of the streets. For all this his anger is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still.

Isa 9:12  The Syrians before, and the Philistines behind; and they shall devour Israel with open mouth. For all this his anger is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still.

Isa 9:17  Therefore the Lord shall have no joy in their young men, neither shall have mercy on their fatherless and widows: for every one is an hypocrite and an evildoer, and every mouth speaketh folly. For all this his anger is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still.

Isa 9:21  Manasseh, Ephraim; and Ephraim, Manasseh: and they together shall be against Judah. For all this his anger is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still.

Isa 10:4  Without me they shall bow down under the prisoners, and they shall fall under the slain. For all this his anger is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still.

Five is the number of grace through faith: [See the study on numbers here for a full explanation of the meaning of the number five] so while we will not see this phrase again, the details of our judgment and the work of grace which produces that judgment will continue to be revealed to us throughout this prophecy.

We all come into this world, "without me", without the mind of Christ. Instead we are given a carnal mind which is enmity against God and is therefore, by nature, abiding under the wrath of God (Joh 3:36).

If indeed we are the Lord's elect, then we must be the first to endure the fire of His wrath to become "the firstfruits unto God and the Lamb".

Rev 14:4  These are they which were not defiled with women; for they are virgins. These are they which follow the Lamb whithersoever he goeth. These were redeemed from among men, being the firstfruits unto God and to the Lamb.

The fact that we are "the firstfruits unto God and to the Lamb" demonstrates there is a later harvest of souls. And it is through the unbelief of the great innumerable multitude of Revelation 7 that the 144,000 firstfruits are numbered and then used as the Lord's saviors who will redeem the rest of all those who are "in Adam" (1Co 15:22-28).

1Co 15:22  For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.
1Co 15:23  But every man in his own order: Christ the firstfruits; afterward they that are Christ's at his coming.
1Co 15:24  Then cometh the end, when he shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father; when he shall have put down all rule and all authority and power.
1Co 15:25  For he must reign, till he hath put all enemies under his feet.
1Co 15:26  The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.
1Co 15:27  For he hath put all things under his feet. But when he saith all things are put under him, it is manifest that he is excepted, which did put all things under him.
1Co 15:28  And when all things shall be subdued unto him, then shall the Son also himself be subject unto him that put all things under him, that God may be all in all.

Next week, Lord willing, we will discover that God uses Babylon, also known as Assyria, as the rod of His anger against His own hypocritical people, against you and against me:

Isa 10:5 O Assyrian, the rod of mine anger, and the staff in their hand is mine indignation.
Isa 10:6  I will send him against an hypocritical nation, and against the people of my wrath will I give him a charge, to take the spoil, and to take the prey, and to tread them down like the mire of the streets.
Isa 10:7  Howbeit he meaneth not so, neither doth his heart think so; but it is in his heart to destroy and cut off nations not a few.
Isa 10:8  For he saith, Are not my princes altogether kings?
Isa 10:9  Is not Calno as Carchemish? is not Hamath as Arpad? is not Samaria as Damascus?
Isa 10:10  As my hand hath found the kingdoms of the idols, and whose graven images did excel them of Jerusalem and of Samaria;
Isa 10:11  Shall I not, as I have done unto Samaria and her idols, so do to Jerusalem and her idols?

[Questions or comments can be directed to the author at vinsmike@gmail.com]

Thanks for your reply, Mike,

In a previous email you said “God created us as sinning machines.” You can correct me if I am misrepresenting your position. I am going to paste a link to a video done by the same man where he argues that sin is a choice. If we are sinning machines and were created to be that way, it doesn’t seem logical that we could just up and choose to quit sinning. I know the guy in the video would come back at me with, “Yes, we can stop sinning with the help of the Holy Spirit” or something along those lines. But I would like to get your take. Is sin a choice? Or is it not a choice or something that is within our control? Watch the video and tell me your stance.

R____

Hi R____,

I listened to the video, and it is the same argument which is made by all who believe in the false doctrine of mankind being bestowed a will that is free from God’s influence. God did indeed give mankind a will, and you and I do indeed make liteally dozens or hundreds of choices every single day.

Those choices we make, though, are all the result of thoughts we have in our hearts and minds which are manifested in what we say and do. Who do the scriptures hold responsible for our thoughts and our actions? This is not something God is bashful about discussing with us. He is very clear in answering that question, and in doing so He makes it very clear that mankind has no power at all to do what he wants to do with his own free will independent of the will of God:

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

If our very thoughts are “from the Lord”, then what hope have we of controlling “the answer of the tongue” independent of God’s will? However, for those who still do not want to acknowledge the sovereignty of God in all things, the holy spirit inspired these words just a few verses later:

Pro 16:4  The LORD hath made all things for himself: yea, even the wicked for the day of evil.
Pro 16:5  Every one that is proud in heart is an abomination to the LORD: though hand join in hand, he shall not be unpunished.
Pro 16:6  By mercy and truth iniquity is purged: and by the fear of the LORD men depart from evil.

If, as the man in the video believes, “sin is a choice”, how then can God say that He makes “even the wicked… for Himself… for the day of evil” which He has predestined for every man. If indeed “sin is a choice” how can God make this statement:

Psa 139:16  Thine eyes did see mine unformed substance; And in thy book they were all written, Even the days [“of evil” (Pro 16:4)] that were ordained for me, When as yet there was none of them. (ASV)

I could go on and on showing literally hundreds of verses which demonstrate that the choices we appear to make of our own free will are actually the work of God, for both good and evil. One of many Biblical stories which demonstrate this is the story of the plotting of Joseph’s ten brothers; first to kill him, which was through Judah’s influence, then changed to selling Joseph into Egypt.

It appeared to all Joseph’s brothers to be an act which they chose to do, and indeed Joseph himself accepts the fact that they “meant it for evil”, but look at what Joseph reveals to us to be the real reason why Joseph’s brothers sold him into Egypt as a slave. This is just as true of our evil deeds as it is of Joseph’s ten brothers:

Gen 45:4  And Joseph said unto his brethren, Come near to me, I pray you. And they came near. And he said, I am Joseph your brother, whom ye sold into Egypt.
Gen 45:5  And now be not grieved, nor angry with yourselves, that ye sold me hither: for God did send me before you to preserve life.
Gen 45:6  For these two years hath the famine been in the land: and there are yet five years, in which there shall be neither plowing nor harvest.
Gen 45:7  And God sent me before you to preserve you a remnant in the earth, and to save you alive by a great deliverance.
Gen 45:8  So now it was not you that sent me hither, but God: and he hath made me a father to Pharaoh, and lord of all his house, and ruler over all the land of Egypt.

That is a huge revelation of the mind of Jesus Christ and His Father for all who are granted to receive it, but the beast, the man of sin, sits upon the throne of God in the hearts and minds of His people, and that beast we all are, that man of sin we all are, is loathe to relinquish his perceived control over that throne by acknowledging that all of his choices are all caused choices which only appear outwardly to be of his own free will.

Joseph repeats the truth of this doctrine in chapter 50 after the death of his father, Jacob:

Gen 50:14  And Joseph returned into Egypt, he, and his brethren, and all that went up with him to bury his father, after he had buried his father.
Gen 50:15  And when Joseph’s brethren saw that their father was dead, they said, It may be that Joseph will hate us, and will fully requite us all the evil which we did unto him.
Gen 50:16  And they sent a message unto Joseph, saying, Thy father did command before he died, saying,
Gen 50:17  so shall ye say unto Joseph, Forgive, I pray thee now, the transgression of thy brethren, and their sin, for that they did unto thee evil. And now, we pray thee, forgive the transgression of the servants of the God of thy father. And Joseph wept when they spake unto him.
Gen 50:18  And his brethren also went and fell down before his face; and they said, Behold, we are thy servants.
Gen 50:19  And Joseph said unto them, Fear not: for am I in the place of God?
Gen 50:20  And as for you, ye meant evil against me; but God meant it for good, to bring to pass, as it is this day, to save much people alive.

There it is, our choices appear to be of our own free will when in reality “God means [all of our evil deeds] for good”, which will, in the end, produce good in bringing all who are in Adam to Christ (1Co 15:22).

I have written an extensive paper on this false doctrine of mankind being given ‘free will’, and I simply cannot in this e-mail cover the hundreds of verses which are in that paper, but you can read it all at this link:

After The Counsel of His Own Will

That article covers this false doctrine in great depth and uses the scriptures to reveal that we have only the illusion of free will. Send that link to the man who made that video, and show him these verses in Romans 7, and ask him if Paul is lying when he tells us twice that when he sins “It is no more I that do it, but sin that dwells in me.”

Rom 7:17  Now then it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. 
Rom 7:18  For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not.
Rom 7:19  For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do.
Rom 7:20  Now if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. 
Rom 7:21  I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me.
Rom 7:22  For I delight in the law of God after the inward man:
Rom 7:23  But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members.
Rom 7:24  O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?
Rom 7:25  I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin.

When Paul says, “it is no more I that do it”, he is not denying that “sin dwells within [him].” Like Joseph with his brothers, Paul twice acknowledges that “sin dwells in [himself]” (vs 17 and 20). What Paul is denying is that he sins because sinning is a free choice. We all sin because we are “captives to the law of sin which is in [our] members.” If anyone wants to argue with that statement, then take it up with the holy spirit of Christ who inspired these words:

Rom 7:23  But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. 

All men who have ever lived have sinned, and if they lived long enough, they lusted after women in their hearts. We have no freedom to choose to avoid being sinners. We choose to sin and sell our Lord for thirty pieces of silver, but we do so for one reason, and it has nothing to do with us choosing to do so of our own will:

Act 4:26  The kings of the earth stood up, and the rulers were gathered together against the Lord, and against his Christ.
Act 4:27  For of a truth against thy holy child Jesus, whom thou hast anointed, both Herod, and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles, and the people of Israel, were gathered together,
Act 4:28  For to do whatsoever thy hand and thy counsel determined before to be done.

That 28th verse is applicable to every sin that has ever been committed by any man at any time. Our God is sovereign whether we know it or do not know it, and it is He who is “working all things after the counsel of His own will.”

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:

Your brother in Christ,

Mike

The Prophecy of Isaiah - Part 11 Discussion

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Isa 2:15-22 When He Arises To Shake Terribly The Earth

Isa 2:15  And upon every high tower, and upon every fenced wall,
Isa 2:16  And upon all the ships of Tarshish, and upon all pleasant pictures.
Isa 2:17  And the loftiness of man shall be bowed down, and the haughtiness of men shall be made low: and the LORD alone shall be exalted in that day.
Isa 2:18  And the idols he shall utterly abolish.
Isa 2:19  And they shall go into the holes of the rocks, and into the caves of the earth, for fear of the LORD, and for the glory of his majesty, when he ariseth to shake terribly the earth.
Isa 2:20  In that day a man shall cast his idols of silver, and his idols of gold, which they made each one for himself to worship, to the moles and to the bats;
Isa 2:21  To go into the clefts of the rocks, and into the tops of the ragged rocks, for fear of the LORD, and for the glory of his majesty, when he ariseth to shake terribly the earth.
Isa 2:22  Cease ye from man, whose breath is in his nostrils: for wherein is he to be accounted of?

This study concerns the fulfilling of this verse of scripture in each of our lives inwardly and its outward dispensational fulfillment.

2Th 2:8  And then shall that Wicked be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of his coming:

The reason this even is being brought about inwardly and outwardly, at the time of the end, is because of completion and the filling up of the idolatry of all of mankind in his total commitment to his worship of what scripture calls "the beast... the man of sin... the son of perdition" (Rev 13:4, 2Th 2:3), meaning our own selves, our own flesh and all that it wants. The preordained time for this "man of sin" to accomplish all of his rebellions, fulfill all of his lusts, and come to the peak of his pride and rebellion, has arrived, and now he must be destroyed.  Here is the Old Testament type of what is taking place in the verses of our study today, and this will be the theme of this entire prophecy:

Gen 15:16  But in the fourth generation they [Israel] shall come hither again: for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full.

It has already been decided at what time God's people will come and possess the land of the promise. It will happen when "the inquities of the Amorites is fulflled". It may seem like that day will never come while we are in Egypt, while we wander for forty years in the wilderness, but the day finally arrives when "the iniquities of the Amorites [are] fulfilled", the sins of our old man inwardly, and the sins of this whole earth outwardly. But that day finally does arrive and then nothing can forestall the destruction of the kingdom of our old man, inwardly, or the destruction of the kingdoms of this world outwardly.

That which the scriptures call "the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life" (1Jo 2:6) that is what verse 20 is telling us when it informs us the idols under discussion are made by each of us for ourselves. When it comes to thinking and believing what we want to think and believe, we are one and all skilled artisans of idols of our own hearts (Eze 14:1-9).

For the full impact of what must come down upon the kingdom of this beast within us, and also outwardly and dispensationally upon "the beast" as the whole of mankind in the full bloom of the power of this rebellious flesh, dispensationally, in all men, we must include the warnings in the words of the verses we covered  last week.

It seems that "the first man, Adam" (1Co 15: 45), can do nothing to please God. He was "very good" (Gen 1:31) for something, but he was never intended to be fit to "inherit the kingdom of God".

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

The first man Adam is very good at "corruption". That is what he is, and that is what he was made for, and he is "very good" at what he was made to do. But this is the preordained fate of "the first man Adam... the man of sin, the son of perdition... the beast":

2Pe 2:12  But these, as natural brute beasts, made to be taken and destroyed, speak evil of the things that they understand not; and shall utterly perish in their own corruption;

Corruption cannot inherit incorruption, and God is not on plan B. The Truth is that He never intended for flesh and blood to "inherit the kingdom of God". That was reserved for "the new man, [the] new earth... before the world began" (1Ti 1:9; Tit 1:2).

Let's take note of the extent of the wrath of God upon both the idols and the pride of the kingdom of our old man and the kingdoms of this world:

Isa 2:8  Their land also is full of idols; they worship the work of their own hands, that which their own fingers have made:
Isa 2:9  And the mean man boweth down, and the great man humbleth himself: therefore forgive them not.
Isa 2:10  Enter into the rock, and hide thee in the dust, for fear of the LORD, and for the glory of his majesty.
Isa 2:11  The lofty looks of man shall be humbled, and the haughtiness of men shall be bowed down, and the LORD alone shall be exalted in that day. 
Isa 2:12  For the day of the LORD of hosts shall be upon every one that is proud and lofty, and upon every one that is lifted up; and he shall be brought low:
Isa 2:13  And upon all the cedars of Lebanon, that are high and lifted up, and upon all the oaks of Bashan,
Isa 2:14  And upon all the high mountains, and upon all the hills that are lifted up,

Our 'land' is our lives, and our 'idols' are all those doctrines we believe and the lives we live based upon those doctrines.  Every part of our being, our weaknesses and our strengths, are all in total submission to our Godless, creature-centered doctrines, which give us what we want, and what we want, as individuals and as nations, is to serve ourselves and to worship ourselves and to have and do exactly what our flesh wants to have and wants to do.

We feel so secure in the strength of our own false doctrines and lies. Outwardly we, as a nation, say and teach our children that we each have free will, and we, as a nation, teach our children that evolution is true science, both of which have the effect of dethroning Christ in our lives and placing us at the center of our lives.  With such a doctrine we ourselves become God, and we become the captain of our own fate. But that "lofty... haughty", self-centered, creature-centered man is being "humbled" and is being "brought low". The whole world can and does reject God and His Word, but that does not change that which is still inevitable:

Isa 2:12  For the day of the LORD of hosts shall be upon every one that is proud and lofty, and upon every one that is lifted up; and he shall be brought low:
Isa 2:13  And upon all the cedars of Lebanon, that are high and lifted up, and upon all the oaks of Bashan,
Isa 2:14  And upon all the high mountains, and upon all the hills that are lifted up,

Our verses for today's study continue to reveal to us the extent of God's wrath within and without upon the rebellious kingdom of our old man and upon the stubbornness of all of mankind:

Isa 2:15  And upon every high tower, and upon every fenced wall,

We build towers and walls to protect us from our foes. Later in this same prophecy of Isaiah, we will read this concerning what God will do to those towers and walls:

Isa 30:25  And there shall be upon every high mountain, and upon every high hill, rivers and streams of waters in the day of the great slaughter, when the towers fall.

The high mountains and high hills of Isaiah 2:14 are the very same high mountains and high hills of Isaiah 30:25. They are no different than the "high tower, and... fenced wall". This is what they all represent:

2Co 10:5  Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ;

All these symbols are the defenses of the kingdom of our old man, and whether it is high towers and fenced walls, or high mountains and high hills in the kingdom of our old man, this is and will be their fate:

Isa 2:11  The lofty looks of man shall be humbled, and the haughtiness of men shall be bowed down, and the LORD alone shall be exalted in that day. 

Where else do we read of these waters of Isaiah 30:25 being upon every high mountain and high hill in the kingdom of our old man? Egypt typifies the kingdom of our old man. Here are a couple other scriptures which might help us to understand what we are being told:

Exo 7:19  And the LORD spake unto Moses, Say unto Aaron, Take thy rod, and stretch out thine hand upon the waters of Egypt, upon their streams, upon their rivers, and upon their ponds, and upon all their pools of water, that they may become blood; and that there may be blood throughout all the land of Egypt, both in vessels of wood, and in vessels of stone.

Here is the New Testament version of this same event:

Rev 8:10  And the third angel sounded, and there fell a great star from heaven, burning as it were a lamp, and it fell upon the third part of the rivers, and upon the fountains of waters; 
Rev 8:11  And the name of the star is called Wormwood: and the third part of the waters became wormwood; and many men died of the waters, because they were made bitter.

In the book of Revelation, the seven trumpet judgments reveal more thoroughly what is in the seven seals, and the seven last plagues reveal more completely what is within the seven trumpet judgments. The opening of the seals, the sounding of the trumpets and the pouring out of the vials are just the three steps which signify the process of the judgment which is being poured out upon the kingdom of our old man and upon the kingdoms of this world.

Notice how the waters of the third trump are the exact same waters as the waters in the third vial:

Rev 16:4  And the third angel poured out his vial upon the rivers and fountains of waters; and they became blood. 
Rev 16:5  And I heard the angel of the waters say, Thou art righteous, O Lord, which art, and wast, and shalt be, because thou hast judged thus.
Rev 16:6  For they have shed the blood of saints and prophets, and thou hast given them blood to drink; for they are worthy.
Rev 16:7  And I heard another out of the altar say, Even so, Lord God Almighty, true and righteous are thy judgments.

What does this 'blood' signify? Christ tells us exactly what it signifes:

Mat 26:27  And he took the cup, and gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying, Drink ye all of it;
Mat 26:28  For this is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins.
Mat 26:29  But I say unto you, I will not drink henceforth of this fruit of the vine, until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father's kingdom.

The kingdom of God is within us (Luk 17:20-21), and Lord willing, we are drinking it with Christ in His kingdom every day as we see and overcome the kingdom of our old man.

In scripture 'waters' signify two things. In their negative application they signify the false doctrines of the kingdom of our old man and those whom God sends to twist His words to ensnare the kingdom of our old man. In their positive application 'waters' represent and signify the Word of God to those who know the voice of the True Shepherd. These 'waters' are very life-giving words which we, as God's spokesmen, are pouring out upon that doomed kingdom of our rebellious, old, beastly man within, as well as this entire rebellious and doomed world in which we live. It is upon the grave of our old man and his kingdom, and upon the grave and the destruction of the kingdoms of this world, that the new man is born and the kingdoms of this world become the kingdoms of our Lord and His Christ:

Rev 11:15  And the seventh angel sounded; and there were great voices in heaven, saying, The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of his Christ; and he shall reign for ever and ever.

God's wrath extends to ships and the pleasant pictures in the kingdom of our rebellious old man:

Isa 2:16  And upon all the ships of Tarshish, and upon all pleasant pictures.

Tarshish was always associated with ships which carried much merchandise for King Solomon and for the city of Tyre with whose king, Hiram, King Solomon was allied. Tyre is an early type of Babylon, and the ships of Tarshish relate to Tyre in the same way as the merchant ships relate to Babylon in this prophecy:

Rev 18:15  The merchants of these things, which were made rich by her [Babylon], shall stand afar off for the fear of her torment, weeping and wailing,
Rev 18:16  And saying, Alas, alas, that great city, that was clothed in fine linen, and purple, and scarlet, and decked with gold, and precious stones, and pearls!
Rev 18:17  For in one hour so great riches is come to nought. And every shipmaster, and all the company in ships, and sailors, and as many as trade by sea, stood afar off,
Rev 18:18  And cried when they saw the smoke of her burning, saying, What city is like unto this great city!

These 'ships' and their captains signify the many false prophets who bring the 'merchandise' of all of their false doctrines into Babylon. When Babylon is humbled and destroyed, then the ships of Tarshish will "fall down before [Christ]" because:

Isa 2:17  And the loftiness of man shall be bowed down,  and the haughtiness of men shall be made low: and the LORD alone shall be exalted in that day.

Notice how similar this verse is to verse 11 in last week's study:

Isa 2:11  The lofty looks of man shall be humbled, and the haughtiness of men shall be bowed down, and the LORD alone shall be exalted in that day. 

This is what King David prophesied would be the fruit of the day of the Lord's wrath upon the kingdom of our old man within and upon the kingdoms of this world without:

Psa 72:10  The kings of Tarshish and of the isles shall bring presents: the kings of Sheba and Seba shall offer gifts.
Psa 72:11  Yea, all kings shall fall down before him: all nations shall serve him.

Tarshish was the westernmost city of the ancient world, and Sheba and Seba were easternmost cities. The point being made is that "all kings shall fall down before [Christ] and His Christ, and will serve Him in the day of God's wrath." Later in this same prophecy we are given this detail about the character of the day of God's wrath:

Isa 9:19  Through the wrath of the LORD of hosts is the land darkened, and the people shall be as the fuel of the fire: no man shall spare his brother. 

Isa 13:9  Behold, the day of the LORD cometh, cruel both with wrath and fierce anger, to lay the land desolate: and he shall destroy the sinners thereof out of it.

The principle of "no man shall spare his brother" is something we will hear many times as we continue to seek the mind of God in this prophecy of Isaiah. The Lord will use mankind's idol of his heart, the idol of having a will of his own, free from the will of God, to destroy him. Mankind will be made to destroy himself because God will answer him according to that supposed 'free will' idol of his heart.

Here are but two examples of what we will be seeing time and again in this prophecy:

Isa 3:5 And the people shall be oppressed, every one by another, and every one by his neighbour: the child shall behave himself proudly against the ancient, and the base against the honourable.

Isa 19:2  And I will set the Egyptians against the Egyptians: and they shall fight every one against his brother, and every one against his neighbour; city against city, and kingdom against kingdom.

And when mankind, thinking he is doing so of his own free will, has destroyed himself by fulfilling these verses, then this next verse will be the fruit of mankind doing what God has told him he would do in those verses:

Isa 2:18  And the idols he shall utterly abolish.

The main idol of mankind's heart is that he believes he is free to do as he wants, free of God's will for his life. That idol of his heart will be "utterly abolished", along with the "idols of the heart" of observing days, months, times and years, the immortality of the soul, its accompanying idol of eternal torment in literal hell fire, and the heart's idol of being raptured out of the day of the Lord's wrath upon the kingdom of our rebellious old man. All of these idols "He shall utterly abolish".

It is only at this point of having experienced the complete and total destruction of the inward kingdom of our old man that we will then "enter into the rock" as we read earlier in this same chapter.

Here is that earlier verse:

Isa 2:10  Enter into the rock, and hide thee in the dust, for fear of the LORD, and for the glory of his majesty.

Like Saul of Tarsus on the road to Damascus, when we are finally made aware of the glory of His majesty, we are suddenly more than happy to relinquish all the idols of our hearts and ask "What would you have me do, Lord?" (Act 9:6).

This next verse repeats the thought of entering into the Rock, and hiding in the dust for the fear of the Lord and the glory of His majesty. But look at the detail that is added at the end of this verse:

Isa 2:19  And they shall go into the holes of the rocks, and into the caves of the earth, for fear of the LORD, and for the glory of his majesty, when he ariseth to shake terribly the earth. 

The day of Christ's wrath will "shake terribly the earth". It will shake terribly our rebellious lives. This is the same thing we all must "read, hear, and keep" of the revelation of Jesus Christ:

Rev 6:12  And I beheld when he had opened the sixth seal, and, lo, there was a great earthquake; and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became as blood;
Rev 6:13  And the stars of heaven fell unto the earth, even as a fig tree casteth her untimely figs, when she is shaken of a mighty wind.
Rev 6:14  And the heaven departed as a scroll when it is rolled together; and every mountain and island were moved out of their places.
Rev 6:15  And the kings of the earth, and the great men, and the rich men, and the chief captains, and the mighty men, and every bondman, and every free man, hid themselves in the dens and in the rocks of the mountains; 
Rev 6:16  And said to the mountains and rocks, Fall on us, and hide us from the face of him that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb: 
Rev 6:17 For the great day of his wrath is come; and who shall be able to stand? 

Again, this is the immediate fruit of the day of the Lord's wrath upon the kingdom of our rebellious, idolatrous old man:

Isa 2:20  In that day a man shall cast his idols of silver, and his idols of gold, which they made each one for himself to worship, to the moles and to the bats;

Twice at the end of this chapter we are told that we will be very pleased to cast all of our most prized idols to the moles and to the bats, and twice we are told we do so for the purpose of going into the cleft of the rocks, and then asking them to fall on us and hide us from the face of Christ and His Christ.

Notice again how similar this last verse is to verse 19:

Isa 2:21  To go into the clefts of the rocks, and into the tops of the ragged rocks, for fear of the LORD, and for the glory of his majesty, when he ariseth to shake terribly the earth.

This is the second time now we are told "in that day... [Christ will] arise to shake terribly the earth". So we need to know for certain what is "that day" being spoken of here in verse 20 in this chapter and throughout this prophecy.

Putting these two verses together demonstrates the phrase "that day" is speaking specifically of the day of the Lord's wrath and fierce anger against the pride, the rebellion and all of the idols of the kingdom of our old man within us and the pride, rebellion and idols of the kingdoms of this world outwardly.

Isa 2:12  For the day of the LORD of hosts shall be upon every one that is proud and lofty, and upon every one that is lifted up; and he shall be brought low:

Isa 13:9  Behold, the day of the LORD cometh, cruel both with wrath and fierce anger, to lay the land desolate: and he shall destroy the sinners thereof out of it.

So there we have it, "the day of the Lord comes, cruel both with wrath and fierce anger". "The day of the Lord" is the same as the day of the Lord's wrath spoken of so many times throughout scripture, as these two verses typify:

Job 21:30  That the wicked is reserved to the day of destruction? they shall be brought forth to the day of wrath.

Rom 2:5  But after thy hardness and impenitent heart treasurest up unto thyself wrath against the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God;

What these verses tell us is that the phrases "the day of the Lord... the day of wrath [and] the day of... the... judgment of God" are all one and the same.

The concluding admonition is that we must fear God more than we fear men:

Isa 2:22  Cease ye from man, whose breath is in his nostrils: for wherein is he to be accounted of?

"Wherein is [man, our old man] to be accounted of? The answer to that question is that our old man is not to be accounted of as anything more than the necessary evil he is. This is "wherein he is to be accounted of:

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.

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.

1Co 15:31  I protest by your rejoicing which I have in Christ Jesus our Lord, I die daily.

Luk 12:4  And I say unto you my friends, Be not afraid of them that kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do.
Luk 12:5  But I will forewarn you whom ye shall fear: Fear him, which after he hath killed hath power to cast into hell; yea, I say unto you, Fear him. 

This all sounds so very negative, because the mind of God dwells on the process of the destruction of the kingdom of our dying, proud, rebellious old man. However, when we are granted to know that the dying of our old man is the same as giving life to our new man, then it all becomes a message of glorious hope, and we begin to see and hear "the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven" (Mat 13:11). Fearing God is to fear no man. That is not bad, that is very good!  And who among us does not want to "die daily" to the proud, rebellious and idolatrous kingdom of our old man? Who among us does not want to see the kingdoms of this world become the kingdom of our Lord and His Christ? The passing away of this world, within and without, should make us all say with the apostle:

2Pe 3:10  But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up.
2Pe 3:11  Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness,
2Pe 3:12  Looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of God, wherein the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat?
2Pe 3:13  Nevertheless we, according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness.
2Pe 3:14  Wherefore, beloved, seeing that ye look for such things, be diligent that ye may be found of him in peace, without spot, and blameless.