Isa 45:1 Thus saith the LORD to his anointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I have holden, to subdue nations before him; and I will loose the loins of kings, to open before him the two leaved gates; and the gates shall not be shut;
Isa 45:2 I will go before thee, and make the crooked places straight: I will break in pieces the gates of brass, and cut in sunder the bars of iron:
Isa 45:3 And I will give thee the treasures of darkness, and hidden riches of secret places, that thou mayest know that I, the LORD, which call thee by thy name, am the God of Israel.
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.

Let’s recall that in our last study the Lord informed us He uses evil men, including Cyrus, as a type of our own beast to lead us out of Babylon.

Here are a few verses of our last study:

Isa 44:24 Thus saith the LORD, thy redeemer, and he that formed thee from the womb, I am the LORD that maketh all things; that stretcheth forth the heavens alone; that spreadeth abroad the earth by myself;

Isa 44:27 That saith to the deep, Be dry, and I will dry up thy rivers:
Isa 44:28 That saith of Cyrus, He is my shepherd, and shall perform all my pleasure: even saying to Jerusalem, Thou shalt be built; and to the temple, Thy foundation shall be laid.

This principle of using our carnal-minded flesh, our old man, typified in this case by King Cyrus, to do the Lord’s work and to perform His purpose, is revealed back in the book of Genesis where the Lord instructs Abraham:

Gen 12:1 Now the LORD had said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father’s house, unto a land that I will shew thee:
Gen 12:2 And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing:

But what happened when the Lord told Abram to get out from his father’s house? Under what circumstances did Abram leave Ur of the Chaldees? Let’s look at how the Lord arranged for Abram to “leave [his] Father’s house”. If we can see how the Lord went about leading Abram out of his father’s house, then we will learn how He also makes us to go out of the house of “[our] father the devil” and how the Lord goes about making us to go to “[the] land [which the Lord] shows [us]”. This is how the Lord works with all of us:

Gen 11:31  And Terah took Abram his son, and Lot the son of Haran his son’s son, and Sarai his daughter in law, his son Abram’s wife; and they went forth with them from Ur of the Chaldees, to go into the land of Canaan; and they came unto Haran, and dwelt there.

Instead of getting out of his country and from his father’s house, Terah, Abraham’s father, typifying Abraham’s own flesh, “took Abram his son… and they went forth… from Ur of the Chaldees, to go into the land of Caanaan”.

It is thus with all of us. Our self-righteous old man wants to go into the promised land, but he simply cannot do so, and he stops in Haran only part of the way to his goal because Terah, as does both Nebuchadnezzar and Cyrus, typifies our old man. Terah and Lot are still worshiping idols typifying our old man who wants to please the Lord, but he simply is not given to give up all of his idols and sacrifice everything to do all the Lord tells him to do if he wants to get to the promised land. 

Yet it is the Lord Himself who raises up our old man and uses him to fulfill His purpose in our lives, even to the extent of making this statement:

Isa 45:1 Thus saith the LORD to his anointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I have holden, to subdue nations before him; and I will loose the loins of kings, to open before him the two leaved gates; and the gates shall not be shut; 
Isa 45:2 I will go before thee, and make the crooked places straight: I will break in pieces the gates of brass, and cut in sunder the bars of iron: 

It is the Lord Himself who has determined that nothing will stand in the way of our old man and his self-righteous ambitions in his service to the Lord. This is how this fact is expressed in the book of Revelation:

Rev 13:4 And they worshipped the dragon which gave power unto the beast: and they worshipped the beast, saying, Who is like unto the beast? who is able to make war with him?

“I will loose the loins of kings, to subdue nations before him” is very graphic language which the Lord uses to declare to us His sovereignty over all things, including the ascendancy of our flesh and our self-righteous beast when it is his time and his day.

“Loose the loins of kings” is a phrase which is found only one other time in scripture, and it tells us of how this prophecy was literally fulfilled when Belshazzar, the king of Babylon, the grandson of Nebuchadnezzar, was so scared that he wet his “britches” when he saw a hand that was writing something on the wall of his palace. That very same night Cyrus conquered Babylon and put Belshazzar to death:

Dan 5:1 BELSHAZZAR the king made a great feast to a thousand of his lords, and drank wine before the thousand. 
Dan 5:2 Belshazzar, whiles he tasted the wine, commanded to bring the golden and silver vessels which his father Nebuchadnezzar had taken out of the temple which was in Jerusalem; that the king, and his princes, his wives, and his concubines, might drink therein. 
Dan 5:3 Then they brought the golden vessels that were taken out of the temple of the house of God which was at Jerusalem; and the king, and his princes, his wives, and his concubines, drank in them.
Dan 5:4 They drank wine, and praised the gods of gold, and of silver, of brass, of iron, of wood, and of stone.
Dan 5:5 In the same hour came forth fingers of a man’s hand, and wrote over against the candlestick upon the plaister of the wall of the king’s palace: and the king saw the part of the hand that wrote.
Dan 5:6 Then the king’s countenance was changed, and his thoughts troubled him, so that the joints of his loins were loosed, and his knees smote one against another.

Cyrus is also a pagan idol-worshiping king, and as such he is just another type of our old man who wants to do good and to be worshipped by men as a great man of God. In that capacity Cyrus, acknowledged that the Lord had foretold the ascendancy of his kingdom, naming him by name many years before he was born, and he was used of the Lord to facilitate the rebuilding of the Lord’s temple in Jerusalem. However, according to the historian Xenophon, Cyrus, like Abram’s father, Terah, both types of our carnal-minded “old man”, remained an idol worshipper until the day of his death. 

This is an excerpt from Gill’s Commentary on this 4^th verse of Isaiah 45:

“though thou hast not known me; as yet not being born; and when he was, and was grown up, he was ignorant of the true God; and though, upon sight of the above prophecy, and under an immediate influence and impression, he acknowledged the God of Israel to be the God of heaven yet it does not appear that he left the Pagan idolatry; for Xenophon (k) relates, that when he found his end was near, he took sacrifices, and offered them to Jupiter, and the sun, and the rest of the gods; and gave them thanks for the care they had taken of him; and prayed them to grant happiness to his wife, children, friends, and country.

(k) Cyropaedia, l. 8. c. 45.” (End Quote)

We are specifically told that Cyrus did not know the Lord:

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.

“For Jacob my servant’s sake… I have called you by your name” is just another way of making this point:

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.

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.

The phrase “though you have not known Me” emphasizes the fact Cyrus was not anointed of the Lord for his own benefit. He was anointed by God for the benefit of the Lord’s people, just as King Saul was anointed of the Lord as a type of the Lord’s rejected anointed, a type of the great harlot.

Our self-righteous old man cannot know the Lord and cannot inherit the kingdom of God. Yet we are dragged to the Lord by our old man… “when [we are] yet in [our] sins”:

Eph 2:1 AND you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins;
Eph 2:2 Wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience: 
Eph 2:3 Among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others.
Eph 2:4 But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us,
Eph 2:5 Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;)

All who have ever known the Lord can look back over their lives and witness to this Truth. The only way any of us come to know the Lord is through first experiencing the growth and exaltation of our self-righteous old man, followed by the gradual humiliation, and then the excruciating crushing and day by day destruction, of that same self-righteousness old man. That is the judging of our old man which is the “one event” which comes to all, and that is how the Lord brings us all to Himself. That is the ‘death’ which is common to us all:

Ecc 9:2  All things come alike to all: there is one event to the righteous, and to the wicked; to the good and to the clean, and to the unclean; to him that sacrificeth, and to him that sacrificeth not: as is the good, so is the sinner; and he that sweareth, as he that feareth an oath.

But our old man must begin to die before Christ can begin to grow within us:

Joh 3:30 He must increase, but I must decrease.

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.

Both the ‘falling into the ground’ and the ‘dying’ are in the aorist tense, meaning they continue until we draw our last physical breath. Both the phrases ‘I say unto you’ and ‘brings forth much fruit’ are in the present tense, meaning we are to be doing that at this very moment.

Cyrus, as a type of our old man, cannot inherit the kingdom of God, and is the ‘corn of wheat’ which must begin ‘dying’ before any fruit can be produced within us:

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

So it is with our “old man” who does “many wonderful works” but who also credits himself with all those “many wonderful works”. Job did “many wonderful works” (Job 29), and he, too, gave credit for all he did to himself and to his own strength, his “own integrity [and his] righteousness” (Job 27:5-6), and did not give the credit to the only sovereign God.

This is what the Lord says to our old man when he does that:

Mat 7:22 Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works?
Mat 7:23 And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.

Paul discusses this inability of the flesh to submit to the Lord in these words:

Rom 7:15 For that which I do I allow not: for what I would, that do I not; but what I hate, that do I.

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?

Our own self-righteous ‘Job’ sees none of those verses. Our parents did not eat of the tree of ‘the knowledge of evil’. They ate of “the tree of the knowledge of good and evil”, and they and we want to do good, but via “the law of sin in [our] members” placed there by the Lord Himself, making the vessel of clay first “marred in the Potter’s hand” (Jer 18:4), through that “law of sin in [our] members” the Lord Himself “made Adam and Eve and each of us to “err from His ways”:

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.

It is so with our own flesh, typified in this case by Cyrus, which wants to do good, and who, like Terah, helps us to leave Babylon and facilitates our own return to build the temple of the Lord. In doing so our flesh is “anointed” as was King Saul, to do that part of the Lord’s service in dragging us to Himself. Again, our own flesh serves the Lord and is so recognized by the Lord as “His anointed”:

Isa 45:1 Thus saith the LORD to his anointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I have holden, to subdue nations before him; and I will loose the loins of kings, to open before him the two leaved gates; and the gates shall not be shut;
Isa 45:2 I will go before thee, and make the crooked places straight: I will break in pieces the gates of brass, and cut in sunder the bars of iron:
Isa 45:3 And I will give thee the treasures of darkness, and hidden riches of secret places, that thou mayest know that I, the LORD, which call thee by thy name, am the God of Israel.

This all sounds so literal and physical and positive, and that is exactly how the commentaries all take it. But “the treasures of darkness, and hidden riches of secret places” are not the “hidden wisdom” spoken of by Paul:

1Co 2:6 Howbeit we speak wisdom among them that are perfect: yet not the wisdom of this world, nor of the princes of this world, that come to nought:
1Co 2:7 But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom, which God ordained before the world unto our glory:

Neither is it the parables nor the proverbs of these verses:

Psa 78:2 I will open my mouth in a parable: I will utter dark sayings of old:

Pro 1:6 To understand a proverb, and the interpretation; the words of the wise, and their dark sayings.

“The treasures of darkness, and hidden riches of secret places” given to our old man have the negative spiritual application of answering us according to the idols of our own heart (Eze 14:1-9) which we just recently experienced when we were all told over and over again that there were many “dark sayings yet to be revealed”, which ‘dark sayings’ but a couple of months later were revealed to be the false doctrine that the first resurrection and the thousand year reign of the Lord’s elect over the kingdoms of this world were never meant to be taken literally and will never in fact ever take place outwardly.

Here is Strong’s definition of this Hebrew word translated as ‘darkness’:

H2822
חֹשֶׁךְ
chôshek
kho-shek’
From H2821; the dark; hence (literally) darkness; figuratively misery, destruction, death, ignorance, sorrow, wickedness: – dark (-ness), night, obscurity.

In other words, Hymeneaus and Philetus were also given “the treasures of darkness” when it was ‘revealed’ to them that “the resurrection is past already”:

2Ti 2:16 But shun profane and vain babblings: for they will increase unto more ungodliness.
2Ti 2:17 And their word will eat as doth a canker: of whom is Hymenæus and Philetus; 
2Ti 2:18 Who concerning the truth have erred, saying that the resurrection is past already; and overthrow the faith of some.

The title of this study is taken from verse seven:

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

All these verses we are covering today are speaking to us as our own ‘King Cyrus’, our own beast, who has no right to eat at our altar nor to drink of the vessels we drink of:

Heb 13:10 We have an altar, whereof they have no right to eat which serve the tabernacle.

Verse 7 is being addressed to us while we are yet carnal (1Co 3:1-4) but wanting to do good” (Rom 7:17-20). Verse three is addressed to us at that same stage of our walk:

Isa 45:3 And I will give thee the treasures of darkness, and hidden riches of secret places, that thou mayest know that I, the LORD, which call thee by thy name, am the God of Israel.

Cyrus, as a type of us, never knew the Lord. All the Lord did with Cyrus was for the sake of His people, Israel. Therefore, he has no right to eat at our altar, and “the treasures of darkness, and hidden riches of secret places,” typify idols of our heart which keep us believing we are the Lord’s elect when in reality we are the Lord’s rejected anointed.

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.

What the Lord is doing in all these verses is “answering [Cyrus] according to the idol of his heart”. Cyrus is a very proud pagan king who remains a pagan and yet feels that he is also a servant of our Lord. That is exactly what the Lord does with all of us when we “believe a lie and are damned” (2Th 2:11). He makes us believe we are serving Him when, in reality, we are just a beast claiming to be God. No man with his own strength can make war with the beast. It is “the pride of life” which snares all of us and makes us believe that we of ourselves are special to the Lord, without even being connected to Him or to His doctrines.

2Th 2:9 Even him, whose coming is after the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders,
2Th 2:10 And with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved.
2Th 2:11 And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie:

1Jn 2:16 For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world.
1Jn 2:17 And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever.

The Lord uses our flesh to lead us into captivity in ‘Ur of the Chaldees’ and in ‘Babylon of the Chaldees’. This is what we are told of Nebuchadnezzar the Chaldean king who was ‘the Lord’s servant’ to bring us into Babylonian captivity:

Jer 27:6 And now have I given all these lands [each of us] into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, my servant; and the beasts of the field have I given him also to serve him.

Knowing now that the Lord uses darkness, evil and death to bring forth light and much good fruit and life, we can now understand why we are told that we must “keep” these verses of the revelation of Jesus Christ within us (Rev 1:3):

Rev 13:4 And they worshipped the dragon which gave power unto the beast: and they worshipped the beast, saying, Who is like unto the beast? who is able to make war with him?

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.

This all now makes these words in Revelation 14 much clearer and more understandable:

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 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.
Rev 14:12 Here is the patience of the saints: here are they that keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus.

Verses 6-11 are “the patience of the saints… they that keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus”.

It is the Lord Himself who has sent Nebuchadnezzar within us to carry us away into Babylonian captivity, and it is the Lord Himself who made Cyrus, like Terah, Abraham’s father, to deliver us from our Babylonian captivity; both men being types of our own flesh unknowingly working and dying and being destroyed. It is all being done in the Lord’s service.

Rom 11:36 For of him, and through him, and to him, are all things: to whom be glory for ever. Amen.

Let’s summarize just how much of the book of Revelation is revealed in the book of Genesis. As we have already noted:

Gen 12:1 Now the LORD had said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father’s house, unto a land that I will shew thee:
Gen 12:2 And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing:
Gen 12:3 And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed.

This is chapter 12 of Genesis. Abraham, whose name is still ‘Abram’, is only half-way to the promised land of Canaan. Instead of “getting out of his country, and from his kindred, and from his father’s house, unto the land [the Lord] would show [him]”, the way it actually worked was Abram’s father, his own flesh, wanting to do good but unable to do so; still worshipping idols, carried Abram half-way to the promised land, but then he stops and for many years he sets up house in Haran, while still in “his country”. As a type of us he stays there in Haran until Terah dies.

Gen 11:31 And Terah took Abram his son, and Lot the son of Haran his son’s son, and Sarai his daughter in law, his son Abram’s wife; and they went forth with them from Ur of the Chaldees, to go into the land of Canaan; and they came unto Haran, and dwelt there.
Gen 11:32 And the days of Terah were two hundred and five years: and Terah died in Haran.

What happens when our old man begins to die and the Lord finally, in type, gives us dominion over sin in our lives? This is what happens in that blessed day when our old man finally begins to die, and we are finally given dominion over him:

Gen 12:5 And Abram took Sarai his wife, and Lot his brother’s son, and all their substance that they had gathered, and the souls that they had gotten in Haran; and they went forth to go into the land of Canaan; and into the land of Canaan they came.

Rom 6:14 For sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace.

When the appointed day comes for sin to no longer have dominion in our lives, we “go forth to go into the land of Canaan; and into the land of Canaan [we] come”.

Those who have lived those words know what they mean. The day comes when you realize, “I am no longer a slave to my beast. Christ lives in me and I can do all things through Him!”

Php 4:13 I [the new man in me] can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.

In type and shadow, Abram was “coming out of [Babylon” (Rev 18:4). Terah is dead and he was no longer under the dominion of his flesh, his old man. The scriptures do not at all say that Abram no longer struggles against his flesh. Quite the contrary. The very next verse in this narrative is:

Gen 12:6 And Abram passed through the land unto the place of Sichem, unto the plain of Moreh. And the Canaanite was then in the land.

This is how Paul is given to describe this part of our walk:

Rom 6:22 But now being made free from sin, and become servants to God, ye have your fruit unto holiness, and the end everlasting life.

It is imperative we understand that coming out of Babylon is not “the redemption of the purchased possession”. The redemption of the purchased possession is the resurrection from the dead for which we yet hope, and that cannot take place while we are yet in these vessels of clay.

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.
Rom 8:23 And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit [our new man], even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption,
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.

As carnal vessels of clay, we are proud idol worshippers like Terah, like Nebuchadnezzar and like King Cyrus. Our old man is used by the Lord to bring us to be exalted so the Lord can cut us down and exalt Himself within us:

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.

Again, our “wicked” man is not made for himself. He is made for the Lord’s purposes (Pro 16:4). Our old man is not ‘made to err’ from the Lord’s ways just for himself. He does so to give the Lord the occasion He is seeking to destroy our old man.

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.

The same is true for King Cyrus. He is anointed of the Lord to further the Lord’s work in His people, His family, His temple and His body. In the end our old man will be made to acknowledge:

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.

“From the rising of the sun, and from the west” all men will be made to know there is none else but the Lord. When that day comes all men will know that the Lord does all things; meaning He forms the light and opens our blinded eyes. But it is also He who creates darkness in our lives and deceives us (Eze 14:9). He gives us peace, but in accord with His will, He also creates the evil, and He makes us to err from His ways:

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.

The Lord is not the least bit bashful to inform us of the extent of His sovereignty. However, the dragon and the beast and the false prophet have all lied to us all, and by the Lord’s own design they were given to “deceive the whole world”:

Rev 12:9 And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.

Rev 16:13 And I saw three unclean spirits like frogs come out of the mouth of the dragon, and out of the mouth of the beast, and out of the mouth of the false prophet.

Not one of these three principles is acting on their own. They are all doing only what the Lord sends them to accomplish “for Himself”:

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

Once the Lord gives us eyes that see and ears that can hear that He is working all things, the good and the evil, “after the counsel of His own will”, then we can begin to realize that when we deny the truth of that verse, and all the dozens of others which accord with it, we will begin to realize that when we deny the Lord even “creates evil”, then we are actually doing nothing short of denying our Lord Himself and robbing Him of His own glory, and that is something He will not tolerate for long:

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.

Isa 48:11 For mine own sake, even for mine own sake, will I do it: for how should my name be polluted? and I will not give my glory unto another.

Isaiah prophesied almost two hundred years before Cyrus was ever born. Like our own Savior, Cyrus was born for the specific purpose of saving the Lord’s people. All the Lord gave Cyrus to do, all the kings and all the countries he conquered, were for one purpose and one purpose alone. Cyrus was anointed of the Lord to deliver the Lord’s people from their Babylonian captivity and to rebuild the temple of the Lord. All glory in all He does in our own lives goes to Him and to Him alone.

That is the continuing theme for our next study:

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.

Could you please answer this question for me?

Joh 19:11 Jesus answered, Thou couldest have no power at all against me, except it were given thee from above: therefore HE THAT DELIVERED ME UNTO THEE HATH THE GREATER SIN.

We know that there is no power but Of God (ROM 13:1), So it was God that delivered Jesus over to pilot in the above verse

Is it God that has the ‘greater sin’?

Thanks, K____

Dear K____,

I thought about this very question a few years ago, and because everything that God creates is good, and God Himself cannot sin, Jesus is speaking to our old man, who is responsible by the determinate hand of God to use us to crucify Christ.

Act 2:23  Him, being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain:

We are the ones with the greater sin. Our religious self-righteous man of sin is the one with the greater sin. God used the evil that is within our vessels of dishonor to crucify our LORD so that in His death we would be recreated into vessels of Honor.

The religious man in us, our second beast with two horns, brings Christ before our first beast’s image, the law of the flesh, and it is our religious beast which has the greater sin, because Christ in us does not submit to the worship of flesh and blood, and therefore must be put to death so that we can justify ourselves as righteous by the law, Pilate, the image of the first beast. James explains it this way;

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 any man:
Jas 1:14  But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed.
Jas 1:15  Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death.

I am not tempted by God to crucify The LORD, I am drawn away of my second beast to kill him so that I can justify myself, by the first beast. My second beast has the GREATER sin because he dresses himself up as religious and then uses the law to kill Christ.

Hi K____,

No, God Himself tempts no man.

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.

He is working all things after the counsel of His own will, and to accomplish His plan of salvation, He sent Satan to have Judas betray his Master to the Jews:

Joh 13:27  And after the sop Satan entered into him. Then said Jesus unto him, That thou doest, do quickly.

Sin is scripturally defined as missing the mark, and all the Father does is right on the mark, including everything He sends Satan to do for Him.

He does not deny that He creates evil, but He, and He alone as God, is capable of calling light out of darkness and of making good come of evil, as he did with Joseph’s brothers whom God, through an evil spirit, had to sell him into Egypt so Joseph could come out of Egyptian slavery to being the ruler of Egypt and to bring salvation to his own sinful brothers.

Gen 45:4  And Joseph said to his brothers, “Please come near to me.” So they came near. Then he said: “I am Joseph your brother, whom you sold into Egypt.
Gen 45:5  But now, do not therefore be grieved or angry with yourselves because you sold me here; for God sent me before you to preserve life.
Gen 45:6  For these two years the famine has been in the land, and there are still five years in which there will be neither plowing nor harvesting.
Gen 45:7  And God sent me before you to preserve a posterity for you in the earth, and to save your lives by a great deliverance.
Gen 45:8  So now it was not you who sent me here, but God; and He has made me a father to Pharaoh, and lord of all his house, and a ruler throughout all the land of Egypt.

Joseph is not accusing God of sinning. He is simply acknowledging that God is sovereign over both good and evil, and is doing exactly what He has planned from the beginning. And part of that plan was for Joseph’s brothers to sell him into Egyptian slavery, as a type of our own slavery to sin.

Then, out of that slavery Joseph was delivered to rule over those who had been his masters, and it is all a type of God working Christ’s death just as the Father had planned before He ever created Christ:

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.

Paul deals with this matter of God’s sovereignty over evil with these facts:

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:

So number one: God is in the process of showing His mercy to the new man of every man, and in  order to do that, He has determined to “endure with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction”, meaning our sinful flesh. Secondly: as the Creator He has the right to do with His creatures as He desires, and is not capable of sinning inasmuch as all He does is exactly “what His hand and His counsel determined before to be done”. He never misses the mark, so He never sins, even when those who betray Him do so “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 think you already know all this, but there are the scriptures which demonstrate that God does not sin.

Mike Vinson

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Awesome Hands - part 116 Discussion

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Awesome Hands – Part 116

“Do good unto all men”

May 26, 2017

Oftentimes, the “consequences” of doing the right thing scare, intimidate or outright cause us to do the things we know we shouldn’t do. This isn’t news to anyone that has lived and experienced life by trying to live a life of doing the right thing, but what often times accompanies this mindset is the FEELING that we are the only ones holding the water bucket.

The Truth of the matter is that the Lord is the one giving us the desire and power to accomplish the “right” things. We needn’t feel alone, yet that is the feeling and emotion we need to fight.

In our study today, we are going to see the manifest consequences that the Israelites had to deal with when they acted deceitfully with their neighbors and what the benefits were to them when they did not do so. In addition to these things, we will see how we can apply the rules given to the Israelites, to our lives today, so that we can enjoy the spiritual benefits of “doing good unto all men”.

Doing good

Rom 3:9  What then? are we better than they? No, in no wise: for we have before proved both Jews and Gentiles, that they are all under sin;
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.

How is it I can be presenting a study on doing good when we just read in Romans that there is “none that doeth good"? When we understand the simple Truth that no one does good of HIS OWN FREE WILL according to God’s hand in our lives, then we can completely understand the sum of the word on this matter.

Otherwise, how can we be told in Ephesians that it is with good will we do things unto the Lord?

Eph 6:5  Servants, be obedient to them that are your masters according to the flesh, with fear and trembling, in singleness of your heart, as unto Christ;
Eph 6:6  Not with eyeservice, as menpleasers; but as the servants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart;
Eph 6:7  With good will doing service, as to the Lord, and not to men:
Eph 6:8  Knowing that whatsoever good thing any man doeth, the same shall he receive of the Lord, whether he be bond or free.
Eph 6:9  And, ye masters, do the same things unto them, forbearing threatening: knowing that your Master also is in heaven; neither is there respect of persons with him.

The best predictor of future events is what has already happened before, when we consider what the Lord has done in the stories of the bible and also knowing from scripture that He doesn’t change.

Mal 3:6  For I am the LORD, I change not; therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed.

Our verses under consideration today, as it pertains to the working of the hands of God in our lives, can be found in Leviticus 6:1-7.

Lev 6:1  And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying,
Lev 6:2  If a soul sin, and commit a trespass against the LORD, and lie unto his neighbour in that which was delivered him to keep, or in fellowship, or in a thing taken away by violence, or hath deceived his neighbour;
Lev 6:3  Or have found that which was lost, and lieth concerning it, and sweareth falsely; in any of all these that a man doeth, sinning therein:
Lev 6:4  Then it shall be, because he hath sinned, and is guilty, that he shall restore that which he took violently away, or the thing which he hath deceitfully gotten, or that which was delivered him to keep, or the lost thing which he found,
Lev 6:5  Or all that about which he hath sworn falsely; he shall even restore it in the principal, and shall add the fifth part more thereto, and give it unto him to whom it appertaineth, in the day of his trespass offering.
Lev 6:6  And he shall bring his trespass offering unto the LORD, a ram without blemish out of the flock, with thy estimation, for a trespass offering, unto the priest:
Lev 6:7  And the priest shall make an atonement for him before the LORD: and it shall be forgiven him for any thing of all that he hath done in trespassing therein.

Where is it contained within these verses that the Lord’s hands are at work?

Well, this is one of those translated verses that doesn’t always fully bring to light what was intended in the Hebrew. Given that concepts and ideas can be lost in translation, I thank the Lord that He has inspired things like Strong’s to help us dig and discover these buried pearls.

Lev 6:2  If^H3588 a soul^H5315 sin,^H2398 and commit^H4603 a trespass^H4604 against the LORD,^H3068 and lie^H3584 unto his neighbour^H5997 in that which was delivered him to keep,^H6487 or^H176 in fellowship,^{H8667 H3027} or^H176 in a thing taken away by violence,^H1498H176 hath deceived^{H6231 (H853)} his neighbour;^H5997

Lev 6:2  If a soul sin, and commit a trespass against the LORD, and lie unto his neighbour in that which was delivered him to keep, or in fellowship, or in a thing taken away by violence, or hath deceived his neighbour;

When looking at other translations of this verse, we can start to discover why the word fellowship has the word “yad” or hand included alongside H8667.

(ESV)  “If anyone sins and commits a breach of faith against the LORD by deceiving his neighbor in a matter of deposit or security, or through robbery, or if he has oppressed his neighbor

(GNB)  An offering is to be made if any of you sin against the LORD by refusing to return what another Israelite has left as a deposit or by stealing something from him or by cheating him

(ISV)  "A person sins against the LORD by acting treacherously toward his neighbor regarding something entrusted to his care, security for a loan, robbery, or if he has oppressed his neighbor,

(YLT)  'When any person doth sin, and hath committed a trespass against Jehovah, and hath lied to his fellow concerning a deposit, or concerning fellowship, or concerning violent robbery, or hath oppressed his fellow;

H8667
teśûmeth
tes-oo-meth'
From H7760; a deposit, that is, pledging: - + fellowship.
Total KJV occurrences: 1
Comes from H7760:

H7760
śûm    śı̂ym
soom, seem

A primitive root; to put (used in a great variety of applications, literally, figuratively, inferentially and elliptically): -  X any wise, appoint, bring, call [a name], care, cast in, change, charge, commit, consider, convey, determine, + disguise, dispose, do, get, give, heap up, hold, impute, lay (down, up), leave, look, make (out), mark, + name, X on, ordain, order, + paint, place, preserve, purpose, put (on), + regard, rehearse, reward, (cause to) set (on, up), shew, + stedfastly, take, X tell, + tread down, ([over-]) turn, X wholly, work.

Total KJV occurrences: 580

So, when we “put” these two Hebrew words together, pun intended, we are putting a deposit in the hand of our neighbor. The concept of a deposit is to later be able to WITHDRAW said deposit. In order to have this be something that can be “withdrawn” later, the person that is overseeing the deposit must be a good steward of said thing.

Then why did I start this study talking about doing good unto all men? The rest of this study will hopefully bring out the connection.

In Exodus 22 we find some more information that deals with some of the corresponding topics found in Leviticus 6 that we read earlier. This is from the ISV translation:

Exo 22:7  "When a man gives his neighbor money or goods for safekeeping and it's stolen from the neighbor's house, the thief, if found, is to repay double.
Exo 22:8  If the thief is not found, the owner of the house is to appear before the judges to see whether or not the thief took his neighbor's property.
Exo 22:9  "In every ownership dispute involving an ox, donkey, sheep, garment, or anything that is lost where a person says, 'This is mine,' the case between the two of them is to come before the judges, and the one that the judges declare guilty is to repay double to his neighbor.
Exo 22:10  "When a man gives a donkey or ox or sheep or any animal to his neighbor for safe keeping, and it dies or is injured or is driven away when no one is looking,
Exo 22:11  the two of them are to take an oath in the LORD's presence that the accused has not taken his neighbor's property. Its owner is to accept this, and the neighbor is not to make restitution.
Exo 22:12  But if it was actually stolen from him, the neighbor is to make restitution to its owner.
Exo 22:13  If it was torn to pieces, let the neighbor bring the remains as evidence, and he is not to make restitution for what was torn apart.

“Deposits” can come in various forms, and the topics, in context, surrounding the word “fellowship”/“yad” found in Leviticus, are valuable to discuss.

As we just read in Exodus 22, money and goods, oxen, donkeys, sheep or other animals are things under consideration for how to act when these things are entrusted to us or FOUND because they were lost.

However, I submit to you that when we look at the spiritual types of these things, we can see how it is these verses very much apply to us today.

The money and goods we are given stewardship over are those things that pertain to spiritual Truths and doctrine. In truth, the animals also represent spiritual types and shadows of the things that we benefit spiritually from.

Oxen plow the fields and provide a livelihood due to their power and strength, donkeys carry our loads for us and carry us as transportation, sheep provide meals and clothing. Likewise, various animals provide spiritually nourishing lessons for us when we view them according to the positives and negatives of them being entrusted to us “by our neighbor”.

In other words, and as we learn continuously throughout scripture, these rules are types for our admonition to do what the Lord commands because it is Him who is working it so that we have these things entrusted to us or stolen from us, etc.

Practically speaking, 1 Corinthians is giving us some insight into this topic.

1Co 10:9  Neither let us tempt Christ, as some of them also tempted, and were destroyed of serpents.
1Co 10:10  Neither murmur ye, as some of them also murmured, and were destroyed of the destroyer.
1Co 10:11  Now all these things happened unto them for ensamples: and they are written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come.
1Co 10:12  Wherefore let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall.
1Co 10:13  There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it.
1Co 10:14  Wherefore, my dearly beloved, flee from idolatry.

What do these verses have to do with anything I’ve said up until now?

When someone has entrusted us with the care of the work they need done, say my boss, I am expected to do a good job for my boss. Work hard, be diligent and vigilant and be a good steward of those things I am given dominion over concerning my job. As a result, I am paid a wage for this.

What about when someone comes to be and entrusts me with knowledge about a situation which they trust will not be communicated to others? I should be diligent to keep the confidentiality of that conversation when this is expected of me. There are exceptions to this, of course, but I am speaking generally here.

Maybe I borrow a tool from a neighbor. I should use it and bring it back intact and in as good, if not better (if possible), shape than when I borrowed it.

The list goes on and on how we should conduct ourselves with “all men” and especially with those who are of the household of Faith.

The Lord tells us He is not slack in answering us according to the idols of our heart. Likewise, when we read Leviticus 6 above, we are being told that how we act and react is directly proportional to how the Lord works things out according to His own will as it pertains to how He deals with us.

When a man was entrusted with goods, those goods were to be returned in good condition since they were placed in the hands (fellowship). If a thief or robber steals or violently steals your and your neighbors goods, you were not held responsible for this, but the case always went in front of a judge to determine this.

When considering all these verses, it was from the heart that these things were judged. “Swearing falsely” is guided from the heart and that makes perfect sense to me when comparing it to:

Eph 6:6  Not with eyeservice, as menpleasers; but as the servants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart;

The point of this study is to point out that none of us are righteous and good, but that we CAN BE GOOD if it is the Lord in us DOING IT!

That’s where the “reward” of the Lord comes in. He rewards us with His thoughts, His ways and His heart. When I work for my boss, I work as unto the Lord. When I help a brother or sister in Christ, I do it as unto the Christ. When I help a fellow neighbor, I help because it is what I should be doing to represent Christ and be as He is, but this help should NEVER take precedence over helping the needs of those “in the Faith”.

All in all, the spiritual admonition of Leviticus 6 and Exodus 20, pertaining to the verses covered today, is that the Lord demands that we consider whatever is put in our physical and spiritual hands as ALL BEING SPIRITUALLY handled.

“Let him that think he stand TAKE HEED” is telling us that we MUST acknowledge that whatever is happening to us at any given moment is the Lord PUTTING into our HANDS the situation we are to act and react upon.

Eph 6:8  Knowing that whatsoever good thing any man doeth, the same shall he receive of the Lord, whether he be bond or free.

Pro 17:22  A merry heart doeth good like a medicine: but a broken spirit drieth the bones.

I’ll conclude this study with some very applicable words from Malachi as said in the ISV.

Mal 2:17  "You have wearied the LORD with your words. You ask, 'How have we wearied you?' By your saying 'All who do evil are good in the eyes of the LORD and he's pleased with them,' or 'Where is the God of justice?'"

Why do “they” get away with it Lord? Why are things the way they are in our world? Why are you putting me through this? Sounds like wearying questions in the ear of the Lord!

Mal 3:1  "Watch out! I'm sending my messenger, and he will prepare the way before me. Then suddenly the LORD you are looking for will come to his Temple. He is the messenger of the covenant whom you desire. Watch out! He is coming!" says the LORD of the Heavenly Armies.
Mal 3:2  But who will survive the day when he comes? Or who can stand when he appears? For he's like a refiner's fire and a launderer's soap.
Mal 3:3  He will sit refining and purifying silver, purifying the descendants of Levi, refining them like gold and silver. Then they'll bring a righteous offering to the LORD.
Mal 3:4  Then the offering to the LORD by Judah and Jerusalem will be acceptable as it was in the past, even as in former years.
Mal 3:5  "I'll come near to you for judgment. I'll be a witness, quick to speak against sorcerers, against adulterers, against those who swear falsely, against those who defraud the laborer of his wage, against those who defraud the widow and the orphan, against those who deprive the alien of justice, and against those who don't fear me," says the LORD of the Heavenly Armies.
Mal 3:6  "Because I the LORD don't change; therefore you children of Jacob, aren't destroyed."
Mal 3:7  "Even since the time of your ancestors you have turned away from my decrees and haven't kept them. Return to me and I'll return to you," says the LORD of the Heavenly Armies. "But you ask, 'How will we return?'
Mal 3:8  Will a person rob God? Yet you are robbing me! But you ask, 'How are we robbing you?' By the tithe and the offering.

When you consider that the Lord wants all of us, He wants our hearts and minds to dwell on Him being Faithful and in full control of all, then we are approaching what it is to bring a pure and refined offering unto the Lord…. one made by a consuming Fire.

We can all rest in knowing that the Lord WILL PURIFY us all in His time and the offering to the Lord from us, Judah and Jerusalem spiritually, will be accepted of the Lord. For us, we need to always take our thoughts captive and always rely on the Lord for guidance in all things.

The Prophecy of Isaiah - Part 31 Discussion

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Isa 7:10-13 I Will Not Ask, Neither Will I Tempt The Lord

Isa 7:10 Moreover the LORD spake again unto Ahaz, saying,
Isa 7:11 Ask thee a sign of the LORD thy God; ask it either in the depth, or in the height above.
Isa 7:12 But Ahaz said, I will not ask, neither will I tempt the LORD.
Isa 7:13 And he said, Hear ye now, O house of David; Is it a small thing for you to weary men, but will ye weary my God also?

Isaiah is now being obedient to the commission he was given:

Isa 6:8 Also I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, Whom shall I send, and who will go for us? Then said I, Here am I; send me.
Isa 6:9 And he said, Go, and tell this people, Hear ye indeed, but understand not; and see ye indeed, but perceive not.
Isa 6:10 Make the heart of this people fat, and make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and convert, and be healed.

Our last study saw that the Lord sent Isaiah to assure Ahaz and Judah that the invasion of Israel, allied with Syria, would not be successful. Now we read "the Lord spake again to Ahaz" offering to give King Ahaz a sign which would assure Ahaz of the reliability of His promise to preserve Judah. Ahaz rejects Isaiah's offer to receive from God reassurances of His sovereignty over the powers coming against Ahaz.

But Ahaz in this story, is the type and shadow of the king of our religious, self-righteous old man. What we are being told, and what is being demonstrated here, is that God truly is working all things after the counsel of His own will (Eph 1:11), even our self-righteous old man's rebellions are His sovereign work to fulfill what He has already written in His book of our lives.

Ahaz is offered by God, through His established and acknowledged prophet, to be given a sign from God that the conspiracy against him would not succeed. God is demonstrating to Ahaz, a type of us, that the kings of this world are ruled by Him, and we, while being the adulterous, self-righteous wife of Christ, do not like Christ demonstrating to us His sovereign power over the kingdom of this world. That would mean that He is also sovereign over us, and we do not want to even hear such a thing, much less have it demonstrated to us. So we say to the Lord who has made us this offer:

Isa 7:12 But Ahaz said, I will not ask, neither will I tempt the LORD.

There we are! From our rebellious, self-righteous perspective, just like Job, we have now demonstrated (to ourselves) that we are more righteous than God Himself, who we know has already specifically instructed us:

Deu 6:16 Ye shall not tempt the LORD your God, as ye tempted him in Massah.

If indeed Ahaz were seeking and demanding a sign from God, he would indeed be demonstrating a lack of faith in the sovereign rule of God over the kingdoms of this world:

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.

But in this case it is God who has commanded King Ahaz, who typifies and foreshadows who we are as self-righteous, adulterous Babylonians, to ask of Him a sign, and Ahaz refuses to acknowledge that Isaiah is speaking for God.

The reason Ahaz acts in this manner is that He is the type of who we are as the Lord's adulterous wife. As such this is what we all do:

Pro 30:20 Such is the way of an adulterous woman; she eateth, and wipeth her mouth, and saith, I have done no wickedness.

Ahaz was not a righteous king. He rejected Isaiah's place as God's messenger, and He was intent upon putting himself above the priesthood as well as the Lord's prophets, as we are told of his history.

This is actually what we are being told about ourselves at this point in our "one event" (Ecc 9:2):

2Ki 16:2 Twenty years old was Ahaz when he began to reign, and reigned sixteen years in Jerusalem, and did not that which was right in the sight of the LORD his God, like David his father.
2Ki 16:5 Then Rezin king of Syria and Pekah son of Remaliah king of Israel came up to Jerusalem to war: and they besieged Ahaz, but could not overcome him.
2Ki 16:7 So Ahaz sent messengers to Tiglathpileser king of Assyria, saying, I am thy servant and thy son: come up, and save me out of the hand of the king of Syria, and out of the hand of the king of Israel, which rise up against me.
2Ki 16:8 And Ahaz took the silver and gold that was found in the house of the LORD, and in the treasures of the king's house, and sent it for a present to the king of Assyria.

2Ki 16:10 And king Ahaz went to Damascus to meet Tiglathpileser king of Assyria, and saw an altar that was at Damascus: and king Ahaz sent to Urijah the priest the fashion of the altar, and the pattern of it, according to all the workmanship thereof.
2Ki 16:11 And Urijah the priest built an altar according to all that king Ahaz had sent from Damascus: so Urijah the priest made it against king Ahaz came from Damascus.

2Ki 16:15 And king Ahaz commanded Urijah the priest, saying, Upon the great altar burn the morning burnt offering, and the evening meat offering, and the king's burnt sacrifice, and his meat offering, with the burnt offering of all the people of the land, and their meat offering, and their drink offerings; and sprinkle upon it all the blood of the burnt offering, and all the blood of the sacrifice: and the brasen altar shall be for me to enquire by.
2Ki 16:16 Thus did Urijah the priest, according to all that king Ahaz commanded.
2Ki 16:17 And king Ahaz cut off the borders of the bases, and removed the laver from off them; and took down the sea from off the brasen oxen that were under it, and put it upon a pavement of stones.

"Ahaz took the silver and gold that was found in the house of the LORD, and in the treasures of the king's house, and sent it for a present to the king of Assyria." He had Urijah the priest to build an altar to replace the Lord's altar, but in his self-righteousness, he kept the Lord's altar in another location by which "to enquire [of the Lord]". King Ahaz is us as these "seven women":

Isa 4:1 And in that day seven women shall take hold of one man, saying, We will eat our own bread, and wear our own apparel: only let us be called by thy name, to take away our reproach.

King Ahaz had not respect for the God of his fathers, yet when the Lord commands him to "Ask of me", Ahaz self-righteously condemns God by insinuating that God is contradicting His own commandment for us not to tempt him. That is what we do when we live the life of a hypocrite wanting the name of Christ, while rebelling against His doctrines. We want His name, but we do not want to eat his bread or wear his apparel.

It requires faith to depend on God when things appear to be hopeless. But as 'Ahaz' we have not yet been granted any faith in the power of God.

Typical of us, he gives all of God's treasures to the king of Assyria, and 'Assyria' is just and earlier type and shadow of Babylon. Ahaz therefore typifies our lives while we are in Babylon the great, the mother of harlots and abominations of the earth.

Rev 17:3 So he carried me away in the spirit into the wilderness: and I saw a woman sit upon a scarlet coloured beast, full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns.
Rev 17:4 And the woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet colour, and decked with gold and precious stones and pearls, having a golden cup in her hand full of abominations and filthiness of her fornication:
Rev 17:5 And upon her forehead was a name written, MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH.
Rev 17:6 And I saw the woman drunken with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus: and when I saw her, I wondered with great admiration.

Ahaz hated both the priesthood and the Lord's prophets, and the priests under Ahaz are not as strong as the priests who withstood Ahaz's grandfather, Uzziah. Even the priesthood is now corrupted at this part of our walk.

Nevertheless, just as the Lord showed mercy to King Ahab when Ahab fasted before the Lord, so too, the Lord is willing to show mercy to Ahaz and Judah when their hearts show any fear of the Lord.

Because this really is a part of our experience, I will take the time to demonstrate how the Lord works with us to drag us to Himself "while we [are] yet in [our] sins":

Rom 5:8 But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

Eph 2:4 But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us,
Eph 2:5 Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;)

Notice that God also showed mercy upon Ahab right at the time when Ahab, via his wife, Jezebel, had killed Naboth and had taken Naboth's vineyard:

1Ki 21:17 And the word of the LORD came to Elijah the Tishbite, saying,
1Ki 21:18 Arise, go down to meet Ahab king of Israel, which is in Samaria: behold, he is in the vineyard of Naboth, whither he is gone down to possess it.
1Ki 21:19 And thou shalt speak unto him, saying, Thus saith the LORD, Hast thou killed, and also taken possession? And thou shalt speak unto him, saying, Thus saith the LORD, In the place where dogs licked the blood of Naboth shall dogs lick thy blood, even thine.
1Ki 21:20 And Ahab said to Elijah, Hast thou found me, O mine enemy? And he answered, I have found thee: because thou hast sold thyself to work evil in the sight of the LORD.
1Ki 21:21 Behold, I will bring evil upon thee, and will take away thy posterity, and will cut off from Ahab him that pisseth against the wall, and him that is shut up and left in Israel,
1Ki 21:22 And will make thine house like the house of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, and like the house of Baasha the son of Ahijah, for the provocation wherewith thou hast provoked me to anger, and made Israel to sin.
1Ki 21:23 And of Jezebel also spake the LORD, saying, The dogs shall eat Jezebel by the wall of Jezreel.
1Ki 21:24 Him that dieth of Ahab in the city the dogs shall eat; and him that dieth in the field shall the fowls of the air eat.
1Ki 21:25 But there was none like unto Ahab, which did sell himself to work wickedness in the sight of the LORD, whom Jezebel his wife stirred up.
1Ki 21:26 And he did very abominably in following idols, according to all things as did the Amorites, whom the LORD cast out before the children of Israel.
1Ki 21:27 And it came to pass, when Ahab heard those words, that he rent his clothes, and put sackcloth upon his flesh, and fasted, and lay in sackcloth, and went softly.
1Ki 21:28 And the word of the LORD came to Elijah the Tishbite, saying,
1Ki 21:29 Seest thou how Ahab humbleth himself before me? because he humbleth himself before me, I will not bring the evil in his days: but in his son's days will I bring the evil upon his house.

That is somewhat similar to the state of mind of Ahaz and Judah when Isaiah is sent with this prophecy concerning the demise of the two kings seeking to destroy Ahaz and Judah:

Isa 7:2 And it was told the house of David, saying, Syria is confederate with Ephraim. And his heart was moved, and the heart of his people, as the trees of the wood are moved with the wind.

Neither Ahab nor Ahaz, as types of our old man, are reformed at this time, in spite of the Lord's mercy. The old man was made to be taken and destroyed, but that time is not yet come. Our old man's death is a slow, torturous, fiery and painful experience. Yet it is at this perilous time that the Lord gives us the prophecy of a savior who will deliver us out of our helpless and hopeless condition and situation.

Isa 7:14 Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.
Isa 7:15 Butter and honey shall he eat, that he may know to refuse the evil, and choose the good.
Isa 7:16 For before the child shall know to refuse the evil, and choose the good, the land that thou abhorrest shall be forsaken of both her kings.

We do not have the time this week to discuss the spiritual significance of these three verses, but I do want to discuss the timing of this prophecy this week. Lord willing, we will get to the spiritual application of these verses within us next week.

It is most interesting that this promise is given to us at our lowest moment, as is demonstrated elsewhere in scripture by the stories of Adam and Eve, their son Cain, King David, and here in the case of wicked King Ahaz.

Notice at what point the Lord reassures us of our ultimate salvation:

Gen 3:16 Unto the woman [Eve is us, as the bride of Christ] he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception [I will judge you]; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to [Hebrew:  'el - against] thy husband, and he [Christ] shall rule over thee. [Christ will rule us all at the appointed time.]

In the next chapter we have the story of Cain killing his brother, Abel, but notice what the Lord tells Cain concerning the sin that dominates us as typified by Cain, murdering his brother, Abel:

Gen 4:7 If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? and if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door. And unto [Hebrew: 'el - H413 against] thee shall be his desire, and thou shalt rule over him [over sin].
Gen 4:8 And Cain talked with Abel his brother: and it came to pass, when they were in the field, that Cain rose up against^H413 Abel his brother, and slew him. [The Hebrew word translated as 'against' in this verse is the word 'el, H413, and it is the same Hebrew word translated as 'to', as in "Thy desire shall be to thy husband..." in Gen 3:16. The same word is translated as 'unto' in Gen 4:7. They should all be translated as 'against'].

For those with eyes to see it is at King David's lowest point that God's prophet assures him of a good end:

2Sa 12:9 Wherefore hast thou despised the commandment of the LORD, to do evil in his sight? thou hast killed Uriah the Hittite with the sword, and hast taken his wife to be thy wife, and hast slain him with the sword of the children of Ammon.
2Sa 12:10 Now therefore the sword shall never depart from thine house; because thou hast despised me, and hast taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be thy wife.

This is indeed the judgment of God upon the horrendous sin King David had committed against the Lord and against King David's own faithful captain, Uriah. But this is what the spirit reveals to us through King David:

Psa 107:25 For he commandeth, and raiseth the stormy wind, which lifteth up the waves thereof.
Psa 107:26 They mount up to the heaven, they go down again to the depths: their soul is melted because of trouble.
Psa 107:27 They reel to and fro, and stagger like a drunken man, and are at their wits' end.
Psa 107:28 Then they cry unto the LORD in their trouble, and he bringeth them out of their distresses.
Psa 107:29 He maketh the storm a calm, so that the waves thereof are still.
Psa 107:30 Then are they glad because they be quiet; so he bringeth them unto their desired haven.

That is the work of the judgments of God in our lives, and Isaiah himself longed for the Lord's judgments "in the earth":

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.

Oh, that the "sword [of the Lord will] never depart from [our own spiritual] houses", and that each of us will be "brought to [our] wits' end" and are "judged" in this age, as was King David in type and shadow!

Now let's consider another very important point. Did this prophecy which Christ gave to Isaiah to give to Ahaz have any "for the time then present" application (Heb 9:9)? Yes, of course it did.

In the very next chapter we are told:

Isa 8:3 And I went unto the prophetess; and she conceived, and bare a son. Then said the LORD to me, Call his name Mahershalalhashbaz.
Isa 8:4 For before the child shall have knowledge to cry, My father, and my mother, the riches of Damascus and the spoil of Samaria shall be taken away before the king of Assyria.

Mahershalalhashbaz means to 'hasten to the plunder', and it refers to what Assyria will do to Israel and to Syria. It is also a prophecy of what Babylon would later do to Judah and Jerusalem. In this chapter, chapter 7, Isaiah is sent to meet Ahaz with his son Shearjashub. The name 'Shearjashub' means 'the remnant shall return', an obvious prophecy of Judah and Israel being carried away into captivity with only a remnant returning to Jerusalem to rebuild the Lord's house:

Isa 7:3 Then said the LORD unto Isaiah, Go forth now to meet Ahaz, thou, and Shearjashub thy son, at the end of the conduit of the upper pool in the highway of the fuller's field;
Isa 7:4 And say unto him, Take heed, and be quiet; fear not, neither be fainthearted for the two tails of these smoking firebrands, for the fierce anger of Rezin with Syria, and of the son of Remaliah.

So while this prophecy had a "for the time then present" application, involving the prophetic significance of the birth of Isaiah's children, and the prophetic meaning of the names of Isaiah's sons, we are given faith to believe that as the New Testament tells us, this prophecy also refers to the virgin birth of Christ, who is our ultimate deliverer, as those who are the ultimate 'remnant' of Judah and Jerusalem who also must physically return from Babylonian captivity and "come out of her", as that remnant who were indeed plundered and carried away by the thieving merchants of Babylon.

Here is the spiritual fulfillment of this prophecy:

Rev 18:8 Therefore shall her plagues come in one day, death, and mourning, and famine; and she shall be utterly burned with fire: for strong is the Lord God who judgeth her.
Rev 18:9 And the kings of the earth, who have committed fornication and lived deliciously with her, shall bewail her, and lament for her, when they shall see the smoke of her burning,
Rev 18:10 Standing afar off for the fear of her torment, saying, Alas, alas, that great city Babylon, that mighty city! for in one hour is thy judgment come.
Rev 18:11 And the merchants of the earth shall weep and mourn over her; for no man buyeth their merchandise any more:
Rev 18:12 The merchandise of gold, and silver, and precious stones, and of pearls, and fine linen, and purple, and silk, and scarlet, and all thyine wood, and all manner vessels of ivory, and all manner vessels of most precious wood, and of brass, and iron, and marble,
Rev 18:13 And cinnamon, and odours, and ointments, and frankincense, and wine, and oil, and fine flour, and wheat, and beasts, and sheep, and horses, and chariots, and slaves, and souls of men.

Knowing that Christ and His Words have an is, was and will be character gives us the faith to believe and to accept the words of these verses as the holy spirit in the New Testament tells us we are to take them:

Mat 1:22 Now all this was done, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying,
Mat 1:23 Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us.

This entire story 'happened to Judah, and it was written for our sakes upon whom the ends of the ages have come' (1Co 10:11). There was an outward application which assured Ahaz that the present conspiracy would not succeed, but the spiritual significance of these events is that these things all happened for our admonition (1Co 10:11), and they are all types and shadows of us as "the church, which is His body" (Col 1:24).

This entire story, containing the prophesy of the coming of Christ, is also a prophecy of the coming "time of reformation":

Heb 9:8 The Holy Ghost this signifying, that the way into the holiest of all was not yet made manifest, while as the first tabernacle was yet standing:
Heb 9:9 Which was a figure for the time then present, in which were offered both gifts and sacrifices, that could not make him that did the service perfect, as pertaining to the conscience;
Heb 9:10 Which stood only in meats and drinks, and divers washings, and carnal ordinances, imposed on them until the time of reformation.

Judah is already established in this prophecy as "a figure for the time then present" of the great harlot who has committed fornication with all the kings of the earth:

Isa 1:1 The vision of Isaiah the son of Amoz, which he saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah.

Isa 1:21 How is the faithful city become an harlot! it was full of judgment; righteousness lodged in it; but now murderers.

And this is what "the faithful city [which became] an harlot... for the time then present" prefigured:

Rev 17:1 And there came one of the seven angels which had the seven vials, and talked with me, saying unto me, Come hither; I will shew unto thee the judgment of the great whore that sitteth upon many waters:
Rev 17:2 With whom the kings of the earth have committed fornication, and the inhabitants of the earth have been made drunk with the wine of her fornication.
Rev 17:3 So he carried me away in the spirit into the wilderness: and I saw a woman sit upon a scarlet coloured beast, full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns.

Rev 17:6 And I saw the woman drunken with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus: and when I saw her, I wondered with great admiration.

Judah and her king Ahaz are so corrupt that she has no faith in the God who destroyed Egypt for their sakes, brought them through the Red Sea and gave them the promised land. Instead King Ahaz, as a type of you and me, is making alliances with the King of Assyria. Like any harlot, Ahaz thinks his adulterous lovers will protect and care for him, but the reality is that it is just a matter of time before the beast on which she is sitting will turn on her and burn her with fire and devour her flesh:

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.
Rev 17:18 And the woman which thou sawest is that great city, which reigneth over the kings of the earth.

Ahaz rejected God's words through His prophet Isaiah. He had the illusion of dominating Israel and Syria because of his willingness to get in bed with the king of Assyria, but the spiritual significance of this entire story is nothing more than "the pleasures of sin for a season", and at the certain and appointed time the king of Assyria will turn on Judah and besiege her and her king. Her judgment will again be delayed, but the King of Babylon, a new king of the same Chaldean people, will hate the whore Judah is, and will "make her desolate and naked, and [will] eat her flesh and burn her with fire". That is exactly what the Babylonians did to Judah, just as the Assyrians had earlier done to the northern kingdom of Israel and to Syria.

2Ki 17:23 Until the LORD removed Israel out of his sight, as he had said by all his servants the prophets. So was Israel carried away out of their own land to Assyria unto this day.

2Ki 24:14 And he carried away all Jerusalem, and all the princes, and all the mighty men of valour, even ten thousand captives, and all the craftsmen and smiths: none remained, save the poorest sort of the people of the land.
2Ki 24:15 And he carried away Jehoiachin to Babylon, and the king's mother, and the king's wives, and his officers, and the mighty of the land, those carried he into captivity from Jerusalem to Babylon.

But Judah's judgment has already begun. This conspiracy of Rezin of Syria and Pekah, King of Israel against Judah, had begun in the days of Ahaz's father Jotham.

2Ki 15:36 Now the rest of the acts of Jotham, and all that he did, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah?
2Ki 15:37 In those days [the days of Jotham] the LORD began to send against Judah Rezin the king of Syria, and Pekah the son of Remaliah.

So "the Lord" had been chastening Judah as a nation from before the time Ahaz became king, yet there is no sign of any sense of national repentance. This is exactly what happens to all of us with whom the Lord is working to bring upon us His judgments in this age. The seven plagues of the seven angels will be fulfilled before any of us will enter into the temple of God in heaven (Rev 15:7-8), but the seven plagues are preceded by the seven trumpets and the seven seals which must also be fulfilled and kept. So the threat of invasion by Syria and Israel is just the beginning of sorrows for Judah as a type of our own judgment.

It is in this state of fear and confusion that the Lord's words come to us "while [we are] yet sinners" (Rom 5:8 and Eph 2:5), and offer us hope, and remind us that our enemies are all in His hand and that they have no power but what is given them from above:

Joh 19:10 Then saith Pilate unto him, Speakest thou not unto me? knowest thou not that I have power to crucify thee, and have power to release thee?
Joh 19:11 Jesus answered, Thou couldest have no power at all against me, except it were given thee from above: therefore he that delivered me unto thee hath the greater sin.

This is not a principle which did not exist before Christ spoke those words to Pilate. These words have always been true, and they were true when Rezin and the son of Remaliah were threatening Judah. Those men had no power except what was given them from above, and Christ has sent Isaiah to tell Ahaz that this is not yet the time to suffer the judgments of God upon Judah. At the same time the Lord informs us that though judgment is coming so too salvation is coming to God's people through that judgment, and the Savior, who is to bring that salvation will also come to His people at the appointed time.

Rom 5:6 For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly.

The story of the prophecy being given to Ahaz happened to him and is written for our spiritual admonition.

1Co 10:11 Now all these things happened unto them [including King Ahaz and Jerusalem and Judah] for ensamples: and they are written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come.

In spiritual terms this story and the prophecy within this story was not even ministering to Ahaz or Isaiah or to any of the people of their day as Peter makes so very clear:

1Pe 1:9 Receiving the end of your faith, even the salvation of your souls.
1Pe 1:10 Of which salvation the prophets have enquired and searched diligently, who prophesied of the grace that should come unto you:
1Pe 1:11 Searching what, or what manner of time the Spirit of Christ which was in them did signify, when it testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ, and the glory that should follow.
1Pe 1:12 Unto whom it was revealed, that not unto themselves, but unto us they did minister the things, which are now reported unto you by them that have preached the gospel unto you with the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven; which things the angels desire to look into.

Being given faith to believe the words of 1Co 10:11 and the words of the holy spirit in 1Pe 1:9-12, next week, Lord willing, we will receive instruction concerning what the admonition of this prophecy for us is:

When Isaiah prophesied about the virgin conceiving Immanuel, we are told that before the child will know how to refuse the evil, and choose the good, he shall eat butter and honey, and the land shall be forsaken of both her kings.

Here again are our verses for next week's study:

Isa 7:14 Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.
Isa 7:15 Butter and honey shall he eat, that he may know to refuse the evil, and choose the good.
Isa 7:16 For before the child shall know to refuse the evil, and choose the good, the land that thou abhorrest shall be forsaken of both her kings.

Learning how to refuse what is evil, and choose what is good is a process that involves [first] eating butter and honey, and having the two kings in the land, the beast and the dragon, to be forsaken. It's of no coincidence that during His initial conversation with Moses, the Lord, speaking from the burning bush, told Moses that He will bring his people out of Egypt and into a land flowing with milk and honey.

Exo 3:8 KJV And I am come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land unto a good land and a large, unto a land flowing with milk and honey; unto the place of the Canaanites, and the Hittites, and the Amorites, and the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites.

We will stop here for now, and next week, Lord willing, we will discover just how important it is that we begin our knowledge of Christ and His kingdom within us by consuming only 'milk and honey' to begin with.

Alleged Contradictions in Scripture – Part 6

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

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

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

Introduction

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

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

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

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

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

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

“God good to all, or just a few?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Here are Job’s own words:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The natural is our first experience, and through this natural we learn so much about God’s spiritual works in the generation of the first Adam (1Co 15:46, Rom 1:20). However, everything in the physical is just a shadow of the spiritual, meaning God is using the physical as a contrast and opposition to the spirit of God (Col 2:16-17, Heb 8:5, Heb 10:1, Mat 4:16):

Gal 5:17 For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would.

The first two sons of Adam and Eve typified these opposing spirits – the evil versus the good – the first versus the last – yet both are essential parts in the revelation of Jesus and His works in us (1Co 15:45, Rev 1:17-19). Cain, as a type of the seed of the serpent, was the firstborn of Adam and Eve, and he was a murderer of his own brother, Abel, who was a type of the seed of the woman:

Gen 3:15 And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.

Everyone born in the line of Cain should therefore be seen as representing the seed of the serpent and the evil God created and is using within His broader scheme of things. All of the evil out there is a direct correlation with what is within our own natural hearts. For those who can receive this truth, the scriptures become a journey of discovery as we will find that we truly live by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God (Mat 4:4). To see ourselves as “guilty of all” also helps us not to get offended by the truth in ‘the sum’ of God’s Word (Jas 2:10, 1Jn 2:16, 1Ti 1:15, 1Co 3:21, Psa 119:160 ASV):

Psa 119:165 Great peace have they which love thy law: and nothing shall offend them.

When Cain slept with his wife (his own sister because the laws of Moses prohibiting incest were not in effect at that stage), they conceived a son (Gen 3:20, Gen 5:4, Lev 18:6-18):

Gen 4:17 And Cain knew his wife; and she conceived, and bare Enoch: and he builded a city, and called the name of the city, after the name of his son, Enoch.

Although the theme of a garden (pastoral or rural in that sense) is the initial environment of man, the theme of a city is also foundational and helpful to our understanding of God’s spiritual work. A city indicates a process of building and to understand what God is building in His spiritual and ‘holy city’, Jesus Christ, we need to learn about our first carnal city – the first Adam and his generation – this ‘city’ of flesh in which Jesus also came to dwell for a period of time (Mat 2:23, Heb 2:14, Joh 1:14, Mat 4:5, Mat 23:34). Many cities are mentioned in scripture which generally fall into the types of either the city of man or the city of God (Mic 6:9-10, Eze 7:23, Rev 21:10-23, Mat 5:14, Eze 48:35, Isa 60:14). Cain built his city from the very ground God cursed, which gives us a clear indication of what the cities or hearts of mankind are all about (Gen 3:17, Gen 4:11).

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

Those ruling in the evil cities of the world (inwardly and outwardly) cannot frustrate or derail God’s one will and plan (Eph 1:11). God told Cain he would be a fugitive and vagabond in the earth, which Cain seemingly wanted to reverse in his natural rebellion by building something that can settle him down and give his family a type of foundation and protection (Gen 4:12). Even in this earthly city, man remains a spiritually blinded wanderer (Isa 53:6):

Lam 4:14 They have wandered as blind men in the streets, they have polluted themselves with blood, so that men could not touch their garments.

This is also showing us that long before God’s elect can settle, the man of flesh has already established his (sandy) foundations and built cities and industries as natural man wants to control everything and lord over others (Mat 20:25). All the natural and worldly competition and running for the front seats is just what flesh is all about. That is also why our fleshly solutions are always first when we are facing a problem. The flesh always wants to be first on the scene which indicates why the firstborn or the flesh will always feel threatened, depressed and defeated when the spirit man appears (1Pe 2:17, Rom 13:7, Luk 11:43, Luk 14:7-14, Jos 2:9-11).

Mat 19:30 But many that are first shall be last; and the last shall be first.

Luk 14:11 For whosoever exalteth himself shall be abased; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted.

All human-built cities, with all the physical glamour and splendor to which humanity is naturally attracted, point to the one evil city which the Scriptures spiritually call ‘the great city’, Babylon (Gen 10:8-10, Isa 13:19, Jer 51:7).

Rev 17:5 And upon her forehead was a name written, MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH.

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!

Because God has placed within mankind the desire to live in His City one day, mankind always has the counterfeits first. Cities reveal natural man’s pride and lust for instant gratification and impatience. Like the prodigal son, we naturally want our inheritance (the spirit man) now. We do not like the way and time God is taking to bring us to our desired haven. So we foolishly want to ‘help’ God, and in doing so bring more frustration, complaining and eventual destruction (Luk 15:11-24, 1Sa 13:8-14;). Only in Godly patience through much tribulation are we made worthy to inherit the desired City of God (Luk 21:19, Act 14:22, Eph 1:18, Rom 5:2-4, Hab 2:3, 1Pe 1:4).

2Th 1:4 So that we ourselves glory in you in the churches of God for your patience and faith in all your persecutions and tribulations that ye endure:
2Th 1:5 Which is a manifest token of the righteous judgment of God, that ye may be counted worthy of the kingdom of God, for which ye also suffer.

Our natural city is also marked with high towers because it shows man’s pride, self-righteousness and self-exaltation which blind us to God’s wonderful works in us (Psa 107). All these mighty human efforts to make our mark reveals our natural short-sightedness as all our efforts will all be brought down at the appointed time (Isa 30:25, Mat 11:20-21).

Mat 11:23 And thou, Capernaum, which art exalted unto heaven, shalt be brought down to hell: for if the mighty works, which have been done in thee, had been done in Sodom, it would have remained until this day.

Even the city that looks spiritual to most because it proclaims the name of Jesus and does many wonders and miracles in His name on the outside, is nothing but the same spiritual harlot harboring spiritual murderers who mix and twist God’s true doctrine to gain their huge following (Gal 4:25, Rev 11:8, Mat 7:21-23).

Isa 1:21 How is the faithful city become an harlot! it was full of judgment; righteousness lodged in it; but now murderers.
Isa 1:22 Thy silver is become dross, thy wine mixed with water:
Isa 1:23 Thy princes are rebellious, and companions of thieves: every one loveth gifts, and followeth after rewards: they judge not the fatherless, neither doth the cause of the widow come unto them.

The first man Adam’s generation through the genealogy of Cain is the one which reveals to us all these kinds of physical pride, lusts and recognition for which the flesh naturally yearns. Even in the meaning of the names of Cain’s offspring the evil or negative is applicable. In these names we also can see more of the dynamics of the city life or the heart of man:

Gen 4:18 And unto Enoch was born Irad [fugitive, wild ass, dragon]: and Irad begat Mehujael [smitten of God – complaining]: and Mehujael begat Methusael [strength (of man)]: and Methusael begat Lamech [powerful; the strikerdown; the wild man].
Gen 4:19 And Lamech took unto him two wives: the name of the one was Adah, and the name of the other Zillah.

Lamech was the first man mentioned in scripture to have multiple wives and this fact points to our unfulfilled lusts of the flesh and the eyes which can never be satisfied with seeing – our natural adulterous spirit for the doctrines of the world (Mat 5:28).

Ecc 1:8 All things are full of labour; man cannot utter it: the eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing.

The pride in our natural man’s heart even convinces itself and others with the same mind-set that it can take vengeance out of the hand of God. We think that God is too lenient with the evil in others, and we want to bring a complete end to that evil now:

Gen 4:23 And Lamech said unto his wives, Adah and Zillah, Hear my voice; ye wives of Lamech, hearken unto my speech: for I have slain a man to my wounding, and a young man to my hurt.
Gen 4:24 If Cain shall be avenged sevenfold, truly Lamech seventy and sevenfold.

Just like Jonah, we do not like God’s mercy on those evil people out there when we cannot see the biggest evil is in our own hearts. This is when we want our enemies and those bad sinners out there to be killed and suffer in a unscriptural eternal hellfire. We naturally cannot accept that God can and will indeed save all mankind, yes even our enemies (1Jn 2:2, 1Ti 2:3-6, 1Ti 4:9-11).

Jon 4:1 But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was very angry.
Jon 4:2 And he prayed unto the LORD, and said, I pray thee, O LORD, was not this my saying, when I was yet in my country? Therefore I fled before unto Tarshish: for I knew that thou art a gracious God, and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repentest thee of the evil.

Jonah had more pity on the gourd than on the people. He was more obsessed with his own salvation than with that of others. How sad is the state of our human heart. In our spiritual blind state (the night) we naturally love and worship the creature (our old man) rather than the Creator (Rom 1:25).

Jon 4:10 Then said the LORD, Thou hast had pity on the gourd, for the which thou hast not laboured, neither madest it grow; which came up in a night, and perished in a night:
Jon 4:11 And should not I spare Nineveh, that great city, wherein are more than sixscore thousand persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand; and also much cattle?

The cities or hearts of man are the heavens where God works His will, also the negative applications in the lineage of Cain:

Gen 4:20 And Adah [one of the wives of Lamech] bare Jabal: he was the father of such as dwell in tents, and of such as have cattle.

Although Abel was the first to be “a keeper of sheep”, Jabal was the first to keep cattle, and he dwelled in tents (also manufactured tents). His name means ‘stream’, and all of this says that he was wandering all the time to find greener pastures for his beasts. His brother Jubal was the first musician on earth. He was the first to make and play stringed and wind instruments to soothe the evil in the flesh:

Gen 4:21 And his brother’s name was Jubal: he was the father of all such as handle the harp and organ.

1Sa 16:23 And it came to pass, when the evil spirit from God was upon Saul, that David took an harp, and played with his hand: so Saul was refreshed, and was well, and the evil spirit departed from him.

This links also to the words of Lamech which he spoke to his two wives. His words were set in poetic form showing natural man’s artistic attempts to hide or soften the pain and evil inside and outside. Zillah, the other wife of Lamech, bore Tubalcain who was an instructor and artificer in brass and iron. This points to the base metals or the natural strength, the beauty and seductiveness of flesh which the generation of Cain also spiritually represents:

Gen 4:22 And Zillah, she also bare Tubalcain, an instructer of every artificer in brass and iron: and the sister of Tubalcain was Naamah [her name means fleshly beauty and pleasantness].

Like King Solomon in his apostatized state, we naturally build cities (‘strongholds’ and ‘imaginations’); all that our carnal heart desires (2Co 10:4-5).

1Ki 9:17 And Solomon built Gezer, and Bethhoron the nether,
1Ki 9:18 And Baalath, and Tadmor in the wilderness, in the land,
1Ki 9:19 And all the cities of store that Solomon had, and cities for his chariots, and cities for his horsemen, and that which Solomon desired to build in Jerusalem, and in Lebanon, and in all the land of his dominion.

This accumulation only emphasizes our natural frustrations and hopelessness. Through this necessary learning phase we will discover incrementally that the city of the first Adam is built on sand, and it will be destroyed eventually. This destruction forces us to concentrate more on that city which is eternal in the heavens (Ecc 2:4-10, Mat 7:25-26, 2Co 5:1). All these natural ‘cities’ in our natural heart cannot fulfill the deepest desire of man for the true city of God – Jesus Christ. Everything the earthly “great city” of Babylon and her daughters can produce is just to make the longing for God’s spiritual city deeper. Abraham, a type of the elect, always searched for the city of God (Heb 11:10). In the New Testament the churches that were established first were city-based bringing to us the positive application of how God’s elect is always made aware of that city of God and how its compactness helps us to see how His people are “fitly framed together” in unity – the one mind of Christ (Eph 2:19-22).

Rev 21:10 And he carried me away in the spirit to a great and high mountain, and shewed me that great city, the holy Jerusalem, descending out of heaven from God.

Heb 13:14 For here have we no continuing city, but we seek one to come.

God is a God of mercy, even on all the inhabitants of the city of the first Adam where the greatest evil is taking place (our own hearts). God ordered the establishment of “cities of refuge” under the old covenant where those who know they are guilty of murder can get a hearing and their ordained merciful judgment (Jos 20:1-9, Num 35:14). Jesus’ compassion for those in the city of Jerusalem (“which now is”) shows that salvation is also for them whose eyes are still blinded to that truth for the time being (Gal 4:25):

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.

When we see the city of God, we do not look either to the right or to the left or backwards and fixate on earthly things, as did the wife of Lot (Gen 19:26, Pro 4:27, Pro 21:16, 1Ti 1:6, 2Pe 2:15). The spiritual city of God, Jesus Christ and His Christ, have the opposite ‘measure’ to the seductive doctrines of the city of the first man Adam. The line between the two becomes more apparent as we die daily to all the “rudiments” of our first carnal city (Col 2:20-22, 2Co 6:17, 1Co 15:31). Jesus Christ and His doctrine are the only true “measure” or “the shekel of the sanctuary” by which all will be conformed to (Rom 8:29). The Jerusalem coming down from God has safety in its true doctrine which is indeed a “great high wall” (Psa 48:1-2, Isa 55:8-9, Heb 1:3, Rev 3:12, Gal 4:26, 2Jn 1:9 ). Those in that city of God see themselves, even now, as ambassadors of that spiritual city and they do not resist or interfere in the affairs and ‘measure’ of this foreign earthly city. They obey and submit to all ordinances of God, even the earthy, by the indwelling fruit of the spirit of Christ (Dan 4:34-35, Rom 13:1-10, 1Pe 2:13-17, Gal 5:22-23).

2Co 5:20 Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us: we pray you in Christ’s stead, be ye reconciled to God.

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[Questions and comments for the writer can be directed to:  glgroenewald@gmail.com]

[Detailed studies and emails written relating to these foundational themes in Scripture are available on the www.iswasandwillbe.com website, including:]

What is the Beloved City?
If Heaven is in Us, What Comes Down from Heaven?
How do We Come out of Babylon?

Video Links

Study Aired March 18, 2012

Job 14:1 Man that is born of a woman is of few days, and full of trouble.
Job 14:2 He cometh forth like a flower, and is cut down: he fleeth also as a shadow, and continueth not.
Job 14:3 And dost thou open thine eyes upon such an one, and bringest me into judgment with thee?
Job 14:4 Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? not one.
Job 14:5 Seeing his days are determined, the number of his months are with thee, thou hast appointed his bounds that he cannot pass;
Job 14:6 Turn from him, that he may rest, till he shall accomplish, as an hireling, his day.
Job 14:7 For there is hope of a tree, if it be cut down, that it will sprout again, and that the tender branch thereof will not cease.
Job 14:8 Though the root thereof wax old in the earth, and the stock thereof die in the ground;
Job 14:9 Yet through the scent of water it will bud, andbring forth boughs like a plant.
Job 14:10 But man dieth, and wasteth away: yea, man giveth up the ghost, and where is he?

Introduction

As we have seen in the words of both Job and his miserable comforters, they have not been granted to see the things our eyes see or hear the things we are granted to hear.

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. [ Including Job]

Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar are all pointing their fingers at Job, and Job is pointing his finger at them. Both are the Old Testament type of all of us while we are a part of Babylon the great who teaches us that we are the captain of our own souls via the false doctrine of “free moral agency”. Like all of us while we are in the darkness of Babylon, we pay God’s sovereignty great lip service, even as we deny it with our actions and our words. Here is how Job as the type and shadow of who we are at this point in our walk, is doing the same thing:

Job 13:15 Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him: but I will maintain mine own ways before him.

We “maintain [ our] own ways” because we are blinded to the true sovereignty of God over all our ways.

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

What we do is not scripturally our own doing at all but God’s, be it good or evil.

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.
Isa 63:17 O LORD, why hast thou made us to err from thy ways, and hardened our heart from thy fear? Return for thy servants’ sake, the tribes of thine inheritance.
Jer 10:23 O LORD, I know that the way of man is not in himself: it is not in man that walketh to direct his steps.
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.

When we are being judged during this part of our walk, we simply cannot see any of these verses declaring God to be sovereign over the evil that we do.

Mat 19:11 But he said unto them, All men cannot receive this saying, save they to whom it is given.
Joh 8:43 Why do ye not understand my speech? even because ye cannot hear my word.

Our Babylonian hireling shepherds have always told us that God does not create evil, so we have always believed that our evil deeds were of ourselves. Even so we do not see ourselves as being as evil as God sees these clay vessels. We see them as being tolerably evil, if not all together good and righteous. So, typified by Job, we plead our own case with words like Job’s:

Job 13:18 Behold now, I have ordered my cause; I know that I shall be justified.

It is so very natural to see our own evils as being almost good deeds when compared to the gross evils we all see so clearly in others. We always tend to justify our own weaknesses by the greater weaknesses of others. Seeking spiritual excellence simply does not occur to our natural man. So it is always the case that when we contend with our Creator attempting to justify ourselves, we display our confusion for all to see. So now Job, who sees himself as righteous of himself, still must confess that God has already determined:

Job 14:1 Man that is born of a woman is of few days, and full of trouble.
Job 14:2 He cometh forth like a flower, and is cut down: he fleeth also as a shadow, and continueth not.

This life may seem like an eternity when we are enduring trials such as Job has already endured and is still enduring with the added humiliation at the hands of his “inward friends, [ and] miserable comforters”. Nevertheless, the Biblical truth is that this life really is “of few days, and full of trouble”. The holy spirit has inspired these words here in Job, as a witness to these words in James:

Jas 4:14 Whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away.

Christ used words very similar to these words of Job, and in doing so He agrees with Job. Without Christ living His life within us, we are all just “man that is born of woman”, and the very best of such men is still corruptible flesh which is unfit to inherit the kingdom of God.

Mat 11:11 Verily I say unto you, Among them that are born of women there hath not risen a greater than John the Baptist: notwithstanding he that is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.
1Co 15:50 Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; neither doth corruption inherit incorruption.

But the only reason “He that is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than [ John]” is that “he that is least in the kingdom of heaven” has had Christ living His life within him, and his works have been judged and “tried with fire” first. There really is but one event to all men (Ecc 9:2). Those who are ‘least in the kingdom of heaven’ are simply judged first:

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.

“Every man’s work shall be… revealed by fire”. It is the fire of God’s Word which is revealing the self- righteousness of both Job and His miserable comforters, as types of us, “for our admonition upon whom the ends of the ages are come” (1Co 10:11).
Job has noted, “Man that is born of a woman is of few days, and full of trouble. He cometh forth like a flower, and is cut down: he fleeth also as a shadow, and continueth not.” It seems incredible to Job and to us, that God gives so much attention to such insignificant creatures as members of mankind such as himself and such as you and me.

Job 14:3 And dost thou open thine eyes upon such an one, and bringest me into judgment with thee?
Job 14:4 Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? not one.

So it appears that Job has some sense that mankind, “man born of woman”, is inherently unclean, even as he maintains his own ways, and declares that he is confident that he will be justified.
As we all do, Job displays his own confusion while contending with his Creator. Here is Job’s confidence in his own righteousness.

Job 13:18 Behold now, I have ordered my cause; I know that I shall be justified.

Bildad expresses this same sense of mankind’s inherent uncleanness, using some of the same words.

Job 25:4 How then can man be justified with God? or how can he be clean that is born of a woman?
Job 25:5 Behold even to the moon, and it shineth not; yea, the stars are not pure in his sight.
Job 25:6 How much less man, that is a worm? and the son of man, which is a worm?

What these verses make very clear is what the scriptures mean when they tell us this of our own Savior:

(YLT) for him who did not know sin, in our behalf He did make sin, that we may become the righteousness of God in him.

How was Christ made sin? We are not left to speculate.

Gal 4:4 But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law,

“Made of a woman, made under the law” are both expressions of the sinful state in which we are “marred in the Potter’s hand… shapen in iniquity, conceived in sin”.

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.

As hard as it is for those who simply don’t have the mind of Christ and His Father to believe, Christ, by His own estimation, was neither “good” nor “perfected” while being “made of a woman, made under the law”. Let’s just let Christ speak for Himself, and then all we need to do is to believe Him:

Mat 19:17 And he said unto him, Why callest thou me good? there is none good but one, that is, God: but if thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments.
Luk 13:32 And he said unto them, Go ye, and tell that fox [ King Herod], Behold, I cast out devils, and I do cures to day and to morrow, and the third day I shall be perfected.

Christ tells us He does not consider Himself either “good” or “perfected” because He is well aware that His flesh too, is “made of a woman, made under the law”. The fact is that our Savior calls Himself “the son of man” twice as many times as He refers to Himself as “the Son of God”. Both are true, but Christ wants us to know that He identifies with us as “in Adam”, as well as being “in Christ”.
“Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean?” Who calls light forth out of darkness? Who brings life forth out of death? Whose strength is made perfect in weakness? Who uses the foolishness of this world to confound the wise? Who uses the weak to confound the mighty?

2Co 4:6 For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
Mat 10:39 He that findeth his life shall lose it: and he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it.
2Co 12:9 And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.
1Co 1:27 But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty;
1Co 1:28 And base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring to nought things that are:
1Co 1:29 That no flesh should glory in his presence.

It is God who sent our savior in sinful flesh and who perfected His strength in that weakness. It is God who used Christ’s corruptible flesh to bring forth a clean “new man” out of the filthy rags that are our own self- righteousnesses.

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.

Job is well aware of the temporal and limited nature of being “born of a woman”:

Job 14:5 Seeing his days are determined, the number of his months are with thee, thou hast appointed his bounds that he cannot pass;

“His days are determined, the number of his months are with thee” is very close to these words of King David:

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)

“Seeing his days are determined, the number of his months are with you.” Taken at face value, Job is admitting that God knows in advance just how long any of us will live.

Job 14:6 Turn from him, that he may rest, till he shall accomplish, as an hireling, his day.

The ‘him… he… and his of this verse are all Job himself again pleading with his Creator to give him a break, and give him rest from his afflictions. Never once does he even consider that “maintaining his own ways” just might be an element necessitating his chastening afflictions.

Pro 5:22 His own iniquities shall take the wicked himself, and he shall be holden with the cords of his sins.
Jer 2:19 Thine own wickedness shall correct thee, and thy backslidings shall reprove thee: know therefore and see that it is an evil thing and bitter, that thou hast forsaken the LORD thy God, and that my fear is not in thee, saith the Lord GOD of hosts.
Eze 36:31 Then shall ye remember your own evil ways, and your doings that were not good, and shall lothe yourselves in your own sight for your iniquities and for your abominations.

But as the self- righteous people we all are while in Babylon, being wicked and backslid are always words which have no personal application. Those are words which always apply to publicans and harlots who are far beneath us. On the other hand, we think of ourselves as worthy of being used by God to stone such people to death.

Job 13:18 Behold now, I have ordered my cause; I know that I shall be justified.
Job 27:5 God forbid that I should justify you: till I die I will not remove mine integrity from me.
Job 27:6 My righteousness I hold fast, and will not let it go: my heart shall not reproach me so long as I live.
Job 33:9 I am clean without transgression, I am innocent; neither is there iniquity in me.
Joh 16:2 They shall put you out of the synagogues: yea, the time cometh, that whosoever killeth you will think that he doeth God service.

The self- righteous spirit of Job is exposed for us by Christ Himself:

Luk 18:9 And he spake this parable unto certain which trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and despised others:
Luk 18:10 Two men went up into the temple to pray; the one a Pharisee, and the other a publican.
Luk 18:11 The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, God, I thank thee, that I am not as other men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican.
Luk 18:12 I fast twice in the week, I give tithes of all that I possess.
Luk 18:13 And the publican, standing afar off, would not lift up so much as his eyes unto heaven, but smote upon his breast, saying, God be merciful to me a sinner.
Luk 18:14 I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other: for every one that exalteth himself shall be abased; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted.

Like any good Pharisee, even when Job confesses that he is a sinner, he considers himself to be a fairly good sinner who is ‘without transgression… innocent… without iniquity’, and totally undeserving of being afflicted, or being “a burden to [ him] self”.

Job 7:20 I have sinned; what shall I do unto thee, O thou preserver of men? why hast thou set me as a mark against thee, so that I am a burden to myself?

Throughout scripture trees are used to symbolize men. Christ Himself is said to be “the life” and tells us that He gives Himself for us as ‘the Tree of Life”.

Joh 14:6 Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.
Rev 22:14 Blessed are they that do his commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city.

God’s witnesses in this world are called “two olive trees”:

Rev 11:3 And I will give power unto my two witnesses, and they shall prophesy a thousand two hundred and threescore days, clothed in sackcloth.
Rev 11:4 These are the two olive trees, and the two candlesticks standing before the God of the earth.

John calls God’s witnesses ” the two olive trees” because he is referring to the “two olive trees” which are first mentioned in Zec 4 where the angel asks repeatedly “Know you not what these be?” What do these two trees represent?:

Zec 4:1 And the angel that talked with me came again, and waked me, as a man that is wakened out of his sleep,
Zec 4:2 And said unto me, What seest thou? And I said, I have looked, and behold a candlestick all of gold, with a bowl upon the top of it, and his seven lamps thereon, and seven pipes to the seven lamps, which are upon the top thereof:
Zec 4:3 And two olive trees by it, one upon the right side of the bowl, and the other upon the left side thereof.
Zec 4:4 So I answered and spake to the angel that talked with me, saying, What are these, my lord?
Zec 4:5 Then the angel that talked with me answered and said unto me, Knowest thou not what these be? And I said, No, my lord.
Zec 4:6 Then he answered and spake unto me, saying, This is the word of the LORD unto Zerubbabel, saying, Not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit, saith the LORD of hosts.
Zec 4:7 Who art thou, O great mountain? before Zerubbabel thou shalt become a plain: and he shall bring forth the headstone thereof with shoutings, crying, Grace, grace unto it.
Zec 4:8 Moreover the word of the LORD came unto me, saying,
Zec 4:9 The hands of Zerubbabel have laid the foundation of this house; his hands shall also finish it; and thou shalt know that the LORD of hosts hath sent me unto you.
Zec 4:10 For who hath despised the day of small things? for they shall rejoice, and shall see the plummet in the hand of Zerubbabel with those seven; t hey are the eyes of the LORD, which run to and fro through the whole earth.
Zec 4:11 Then answered I, and said unto him, What are these two olive trees upon the right side of the candlestick and upon the left side thereof?
Zec 4:12 And I answered again, and said unto him, What be these two olive branches which through the two golden pipes empty the golden oil out of themselves?
Zec 4:13 And he answered me and said, Knowest thou not what these be? And I said, No, my lord.
Zec 4:14 Then said he, These are the two anointed ones, that stand by the Lord of the whole earth.

So a tree whose roots are still in the earth is revived with the mere scent of water, even after it is cut down. This tree Job speaks of is actually himself, who though he has been cut down, he refuses to die to his own self- righteousness. With just “the scent of water”, with just a hint of God’s word, as opposed to “the sum of [ God’s] word” (Psa 119:160), the old Job is revived.

Job 14:7 For there is hope of a tree, if it be cut down, that it will sprout again, and that the tender branch thereof will not cease.
Job 14:8 Though the root thereof wax old in the earth, and the stock thereof die in the ground;
Job 14:9 Yet through the scent of water it will bud, and bring forth boughs like a plant.

If any of our “old man” survives, he again blossoms, is healed, and will overcome the saints, and “bring forth like a plant”, that was never cut down. Here is the way this same principle is expressed in the book of Revelation:

Rev 13:3 And I saw one of his heads [ of the beast that is mankind, Ecc 3:18] as it were wounded to death; and his deadly wound was healed: and all the world wondered after the beast.
Rev 13:4 And they worshipped the dragon which gave power unto the beast: and they worshipped the beast, saying, Who is like unto the beast? who is able to make war with him?

It is God who both gives us our deadly wound and who also heals that wound and restores our beastly health, to continue opposing Him and His ways. It is God who helps us to fight and overcome the “giants” in our land, and it is God who has predestined that we will all go into Babylon to learn the ways of that system.

Hos 11:3 I taught Ephraim also to go, taking them by their arms; but they knew not that I healed them.
Hos 11:4 I drew them with cords of a man, with bands of love: and I was to them as they that take off the yoke on their jaws, and I laid meat unto them.
Hos 11:5 He shall not return into the land of Egypt, but the Assyrian [ Nineveh and Babylon] shall be his king, because they refused to return.

God has all our days written in His book. Our very thoughts are predestined to show us who we are and what mankind is. Our suffering is all for the purpose of bringing forth a good end. It takes decaying matter to produce nourishing fruit. We, like Job, may at first have a glimpse of these truths, but for “a long time” we are not granted to see the process through which God is bringing us all to Himself.
So at this point Job sees death simply as relief from man’s “days [ which are] few… and full of trouble” (Job 14:1). Neither Job nor we can see the connection between the tree that revives at the scent of water, and the beast within. We cannot accept, at this time in our walk, that we live by every word of God (Mat 4:4), that all things are ours (1Co 2:21-22), and that all things come alike to all men (Ecc 9:2). So he attempts, as we all do until we granted to see the Truth of those verses, to segregate himself from the tree that is cut down.

Job 14:10 But man dieth, and wasteth away: yea, man giveth up the ghost, and where is he?

“Man dies… gives up the spirit… and where is he?” Job, does not know the answer to that question. He later affirms that “when I am tried I will come forth as gold”.

Job 23:10 But he knoweth the way that I take: when he hath tried me, I shall come forth as gold.

So, just as Job, we have hints of what God is doing, but we have no idea that the goal is the salvation of all who are in Adam, even though the whole process is right there before our eyes all along:

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.

The scriptures answer Job’s question. Man returns to the dust whence he was taken and the spirit from God which gives him this temporary life in this clay vessel, returns to God who gave it. That spirit is the spirit of God from which all things come. It is not an individual personality, and it “knows not anything” as such.

Gen 3:19 In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.
Ecc 9:5 For the living know that they shall die: but the dead know not any thing, neither have they any more a reward; for the memory of them is forgotten.

“All things are of God”. He sends forth His spirit and creates all life, but when He withdraws that spirit, they die, and without a resurrection they are perished. They are not alive in joy in heaven, nor are they suffering in eternal flames in hell. They are asleep in the earth until they are resurrected from among the dead.

2Co 5:18 And all things are of God, who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ, and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation;
Psa 104:29 Thou hidest thy face, they are troubled: thou takest away their breath, they die, and return to their dust.
Psa 104:30 Thou sendest forth thy spirit, they are created: and thou renewest the face of the earth.
1Co 15:16 For if the dead rise not, then is not Christ raised:
1Co 15:17 And if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins.
1Co 15:18 Then they also which are fallen asleep in Christ are perished.

But Christ is risen, and just as we are all dying “in Adam… so in Christ shall all be made alive” via a resurrection from the dead.

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

Next week we will, Lord willing, consider the rest of the verses here in chapter 14 of Job.

Job 14:11 As the waters fail from the sea, and the flood decayeth and drieth up:
Job 14:12 So man lieth down, and riseth not: till the heavens be no more, they shall not awake, nor be raised out of their sleep.
Job 14:13 O that thou wouldest hide me in the grave, that thou wouldest keep me secret, until thy wrath be past, that thou wouldest appoint me a set time, and remember me!
Job 14:14 If a man die, shall he live again? all the days of my appointed time will I wait, till my change come.
Job 14:15 Thou shalt call, and I will answer thee: thou wilt have a desire to the work of thine hands.
Job 14:16 For now thou numberest my steps: dost thou not watch over my sin?
Job 14:17 My transgression is sealed up in a bag, and thou sewest up mine iniquity.
Job 14:18 And surely the mountain falling cometh to nought, and the rock is removed out of his place.
Job 14:19 The waters wear the stones: thou washest away the things which grow out of the dust of the earth; and thou destroyest the hope of man.
Job 14:20 Thou prevailest for ever against him, and he passeth: thou changest his countenance, and sendest him away.
Job 14:21 His sons come to honour, and he knoweth it not; and they are brought low, but he perceiveth it not of them.
Job 14:22 But his flesh upon him shall have pain, and his soul within him shall mourn.

Mr. Vinson,

I have a question that has been bothering me.
What does the Bible mean when it says God “created darkness”? Some say that darkness does not “exist,” that it’s just the opposite of light. Others say that the Bible means God creates darkness because of “night” (i. e. because the Earth rotates, it appears dark on one side of the Earth, hence “darkness”.
Anyway, I have scary thoughts about things like, if God did not exist, what would there be? Would there be light or darkness?
Please respond.

I____

Hi I____,
Thank you for your question.
You ask:

What does the Bible mean when it says God “created darkness”?”

As hard as this is for orthodox Christians to believe, what this means is that God, through Satan, is responsible for all that takes place within His creation. He does not pass the buck to either Satan or our fabled “free will”. There is no such thing as “free” will and Satan is nothing more than a tool in God’s sovereign hand.

Pro 16:4 The LORD hath made all things for himself: yea, even the wicked for the day of evil.
Rom 9:16 So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy.
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:
Php 2:13 For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure.

“It is NOT of him that wills… but of God…” The time mankind spends in these temporary “vessels of clay” is intentionally designed to simply demonstrate why “flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God” because of the corruptible nature of these temporary vessels of clay.

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

It was God, not Satan, who created the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and He did so intentionally so mankind, “marred” in His own hand, would eat of that tree and would come to see that he is in need of a Savior.

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.
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,

God is trying to tell us all of this, even as mankind tries to ‘save His reputation’ by lying and saying that God does not create evil.

Pro 16:4 The LORD hath made all things for himself: yea, even the wicked for the day of evil.
Isa 45:7 I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things.

What does “I create evil” mean? Does it mean ‘disaster’ or ‘calamity’, such as earthquakes and tsunamis? Is that what “I… create evil means”? No, that is not what “I… create evil” means. Here is what that means.

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.

Which ‘wicked’ has God made for Himself? What ‘evil’ has God “created”? What ‘erring’ has He ‘made us to err’? He has made all the wicked for Himself and He has created all the evil this ever has been or ever will be, and He has made all erring that has ever taken place.

Act 17:28 For in him we [ including the wicked Athenians Paul is speaking to] live, and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also his offspring.
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?

So God has created evil and flesh as the ugly scaffold through which He is building a new and better house in He will dwell. In the end, all men will be saved, and this ‘scaffold’ of sinful flesh will be destroyed. But that end will come only through fiery judgment which is even now on the house of God, but will in time come upon all men to salvation.

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.

The “lake of fire” is the instrument of God for the salvation of all men.

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.

As long as one person is still dead, death is not “destroyed”. But if the life of Christ is, in the end, granted to all men, then death will be destroyed.

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 [‘first’, but not exclusively] of those that believe.

1Pe 4:17 For the time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God: and if it first begin at us, what shall the end be of them that obey not the gospel of God?

So judgment is now on “the house of God”, but that is just where it “begins”. That is not where it ends. In time Christ’s work will save “the whole world”.

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.

So the answer to your question is that ‘Yes, God did create darkness’, but He did so for the purpose of ‘calling light out of darkness’.

2Co 4:6 For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
1Pe 2:9 But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light:

We understand only by contrasting one thing with another. So God is calling light and righteousness out of the darkness of sin and evil. He is calling life out of death, and He is calling good out of evil.
It is foolish to say that ‘darkness does not exist, it is just the opposite of light’. That is the same as saying that light doesn’t exist because it is just the opposite of darkness.
If God did not exist, then there would be nothing, because it is in Him and through His Christ that all things consist.

Col 1:16 For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him:
Col 1:17 And he is before all things, and by him all things consist.

“All things” means all evil as well as all good. The most heinous act of all time was the murder of our Savior Jesus Christ. That too, was done only as God Himself had ordained”

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.

There is an in depth paper on this subject on the iswasandwillbe. com website. It is in the Essential Reading section which is in the upper left corner of the homepage. It is entitled After The Counsel of His Own Will. Read that article, and if you still have questions please feel free to get back to me.
‘Darkness’ is the Biblical symbol of ignorance, and ‘light’ is the Biblical symbol of knowledge.
Life eternal is defined as ‘knowing God and His Son’.

Joh 17:3 And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.

When in God’s own time, all men come to “know… God and Jesus Christ”, both darkness and death will be destroyed, and light and life will be all that remains.
I hope this helps you to understand that God did indeed create evil, but that He did so simply as a tool in His hand by which to drag all men to Himself.
Your brother in Christ,

Mike

Mike,

Thank you for your last email. It was very helpful! You’re really good at getting all of the details.

I have another question (please forgive me) which has been bothering me. Does God know all?

Thank you,

I____

Hi I____,

You are welcome, and thank you for your question.

You ask, “Does God know all?” This is an easy question to answer. The answer is, “Yes, God does know all, simply because God, as the all powerful Creator of all things, is the ultimate cause of all things both good and evil.” I am not saying that God Himself commits evil. What the scriptures do declare unequivocally is that God, through evil spirits, works and creates evil for the purpose of carrying out a predetermined plan.

Our natural man either hates God for what He tells us He causes, or our natural man will simply ignore and deny what God himself unabashedly admits and claims. The stories of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, the stories of Joseph and his brothers who were used by God to sell Joseph into Egypt, the story of Job with Satan saying, “Put forth your hand and take all he has and he will curse you to your face.” Then God tells Satan that He was placing Job in Satan’s hands, but instructing Satan exactly how far he could go, explains how God controls and operates in all things.

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.

“You sold me into Egypt… you sold me hither… So now it was not you that sent me here, but God”. Yes, God does “know all” because it is God 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:

Now let’s examine the story of Job.

Job 1:8 And the LORD said unto Satan, Hast thou considered my servant Job, that there is none like him in the earth, a perfect and an upright man, one that feareth God, and escheweth evil?
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.

It is God who calls Satan’s attention to Job and to you and me when He chooses us as His elect who “must through much tribulation enter into the kingdom of God” and who “cannot enter into the temple till the seven plagues of the seven angels is fulfilled.”

Act 14:22 Confirming the souls of the disciples, and exhorting them to continue in the faith, and that we must through much tribulation enter into the kingdom of God.

Rev 1:3 Blessed is he that readeth, and they that hear the words of this prophecy, and keep those things which are written therein: for the time is at hand.

Including these “things written therein”:

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.

In this story of Job, God demonstrates for us in very graphic language how He calls Satan to do His bidding. Satan is sent by God to do two evil things to Job. First Satan is commissioned by God to destroy all Job owns. However, Satan can go not one inch further:

Satan is next commissioned by God to “put forth his hand” and touch Job himself, but that is Satan’s limit. Satan can do nothing he is not sent to accomplish.

Job 2:6 And the LORD said unto Satan, Behold, he is in thine hand; but save his life.
Job 2:7 So went Satan forth from the presence of the LORD, and smote Job with sore boils from the sole of his foot unto his crown.

Satan does nothing beyond the will of God. That is so simply because Satan is, and has always been, nothing more or less than an instrument of God to accomplish His predestined plan and purpose. Notice how the scriptures speak of God’s creation of “the crooked serpent”.

Job 26:13 By his spirit he hath garnished the heavens; his hand hath formed the crooked serpent.

So much for the false doctrine which attempts to pervert prophecies addressed specifically to the vanities “in the hearts” of the king of Babylon (Isaiah 14) and the prince of Tyrus (Ezekiel 28), into prophecies concerning Satan, who was formed as a serpent in the hand of God.

Isa 14:4 That thou shalt take up this proverb against the king of Babylon, and say, How hath the oppressor ceased! the golden city ceased!

Isa 14:13 For thou [king of Babylon] hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north:

So just how far does God’s knowledge of ‘all’ extend? Here is the Biblical answer:

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

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

Isa 66:18 For I know their works and their thoughts: it shall come, that I will gather all nations and tongues; and they shall come, and see my glory.

Mat 9:4 And Jesus knowing their thoughts said, Wherefore think ye evil in your hearts?

Col 1:15  Who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature:
Col 1:16  For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him:
Col 1:17  And he is before all things, and by him all things consist.

Psa 94:11 The LORD knoweth the thoughts of man, that they are vanity.

So yes, God does know all, even all of the thoughts of men, simply because, in the final analysis, “the preparations of the heart in man and the answer of the tongue are from the Lord.”

That is how He is “the beginning and the end”:

Rev 21:6 And he said unto me, It is done. I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. I will give unto him that is athirst of the fountain of the water of life freely.

That is how Paul could say that even pagan Athenians ‘live, move, and have their being in Christ.’ That is how we “were called in him before the world [Greek: aion, age] began”.

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.

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;

I hope this has answered your question. Even “the first man Adam” also known in the scriptures as ‘the man of sin, the son of perdition… the seed of… the serpent’, is “in Him… in Christ.

Luk 3:38 Which was the son of Enos, which was the son of Seth, which was the son of Adam, which was the son of God.

Rom 11:36 For of him, and through him, and to him, are all things: to whom be glory for ever. Amen.

Your brother in Christ,
Mike

What is really EVIL according to scriptures? And why is it good?

M____

Hi M____,

You ask what is evil, and why it is good?
The answer is that evil is not knowing or obeying God, and that is never to be called good.

3Jn 1:11 Beloved, follow not that which is evil, but that which is good. He that doeth good is of God: but he that doeth evil hath not seen God.

‘Seeing God’ is to obey Him. Not ‘seeing’ Him is to disobey.
Nowhere in scripture or on iswasandwillbe. com will you find one word which says that evil is good. Here is what you will find in both scripture and on iswasandwillbe. com

Isa 5:20 Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!

What you will find throughout iswasandwillbe. com is the biblical truth that God, and God alone, is calling light to come forth out of darkness, and is making good things to come forth out of evil things.

Rom 8:28 And we know that all things [ the good and the evil, life and death] work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.

In time this will be true for all men, but at this time it applies only to those “who are called according to His purpose” of knowing that He alone is calling light out of darkness and good out of evil. The story of Joseph and his brothers demonstrates that even our evil deeds are the sovereign work of God. That story demonstrates that our evil actions are in reality nothing more than the influence of evil spirits to do evil deeds.

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.

“You sold me into Egypt… So now it was not you that sent me here, but God”. That explains this verse in second Corinthians.

2Co 4:6 For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

That is why we are instructed to pray, “Our Father which art in heaven… lead us not [ by the agency of evil spirits] into temptation, but deliver us from evil…”

Mat 6:13 And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil: For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen.
1Sa 16:14 But the Spirit of the LORD departed from Saul, and an evil spirit from the LORD troubled him.

“An evil spirit from the Lord“. Evil spirits, all doctrines of Babylon to the contrary, are not ‘loose cannons’, but rather are instruments of God to “work all things after the counsel of His own will” and not after the will of either evil spirits or evil men.
The book of Job demonstrates that Satan does exactly what the Lord directs him to do; not one thing more, and not one thing less. He could not touch Job until he was instructed to do so, and when he was so instructed he could go only as far as the Lord instructed him.

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.

“Put forth your hand”. Satan acknowledges here what men cannot. He acknowledges that he is just an instrument in God’s hands. This is not to say that Satan realizes that fact, any more than a person who survives a tornado or earthquake understands the sovereignty of God when he tells the evening news that “Everything happens for a purpose”.
The fact of scripture is that when we sin, we do so because that was predestined by God, and was “written in His book” before we were ever born.

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.

That is an incredible revelation for those to whom it is given to understand that God is working all things together “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:

A perfect example of how God causes good to come out of evil is the death of our Lord. That murder was the worst crime in all the history of mankind. Nevertheless it was all the work of God for the good of all mankind. This is the spiritual fulfillment of the shadow of what Joseph’s brothers did to him.

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.

If you have not yet done so be sure to read After The Counsel of His Own Will here http:// iswasandwillbe. com/ sovereignty. php.
In the meantime, I hope these few scriptures of the many you will find in After The Counsel of His Own Will, will help you to see that evil in not good, and must never be said to be good, and yet God alone can and is making good come of evil.
Your brother in Christ,
Mike