All Things

God, the Creator of all things, upholds, directs, disposes, and governs … all … creatures, actions, and things, from the greatest event to the least. All things come to pass according to the decree of God. He is the cause of all things and has sovereign dominion over them.

Some of the things God decrees through providence and His sovereign power are not always thought of by natural man as good. There are some things either sent or allowed by God that are judged as evil brought upon sinful man.

Deuteronomy 29:29 … "The secret things belong unto the LORD our God: but those things which are revealed belong unto us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law."

The objective I have in mind for this dissertation is to present what the Word of God has revealed to us about the conduct of God concerning all that He allows to come our way. All things … good or evil … are here by God's decree for a purpose or reason which we may not understand at this present time.

There may be some things we will never know the reason for; secret things that belong only to God that are never revealed to us. That's why they are secret … we don't need to know, they belong to Him alone.

Isaiah 14:24 … "The LORD of hosts hath sworn, saying, Surely as I have thought, so shall it come to pass; and as I have purposed, so shall it stand …"

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

Isaiah 46:9-11 … "I am God, and there is none like Me, declaring the end from the beginning … saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure … yea, I have spoken it, I will also bring it to pass; I have purposed it, I will also do it."

These verses of scripture in the Old Testament declare … for whatever purpose God had in mind, when He spoke or decreed anything, it happened; it came to pass as He ordained it, and His sovereign will became … reality.

Augustine, the 6th century Benedictine monk who was the first Archbishop of Canterbury and founder of the English Church has said …"Evil, which is sin, the Lord hath not done; evil, which is punishment for sin, the Lord bringeth."

When God said that He created evil, He was not speaking of the evil of sin, but of the natural evils which are many; evils that He cursed the earth with as the result of man's original sin. Sickness, disease and death are an ongoing punishment decreed by God to remind us that we live in a fallen sinful world and have need of a savior.

From what looks like permission to sin by giving man a free will to choose sin … God is neither the author nor approver of sin. The sinfulness proceeds only from the creature, and not from God.

Amos 3:6 …"Shall there be evil in a city, and the LORD hath not done it?"

Job 1:21 …" Naked came I out of my mother's womb, and naked shall I return thither: the LORD gave, and the LORD hath taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD."

Job 2:10 … "What, shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil?"

Lamentations 3:32-33 … "Though he cause grief, yet will he have compassion according to the multitude of his mercies. For he doth not afflict willingly nor grieve the children of men."

Lamentations 3:38-39 …"Out of the mouth of the most High proceedeth not evil and good? Wherefore doth a living man complain … for the punishment of his sins?"

The Amplified states it this way … "Is it not out of the mouth of the Most High that evil and good both proceed … why does a man complain for the punishment of his sins?"

Whatever a man's lot in life is, it is God that orders it … He still forms the light and creates the darkness, as he did at first.

But know this … though we may pour out our complaints before God, we must never complain against God. His judgment is not against us, but our sin.

R.C. Sproul speaks to this fact when he says … "If there were no sin in the world, there would be no suffering. Because sin is present in the world, suffering is present in the world; but it doesn’t always work out that if you have five pounds of guilt, you’re going to get five pounds of suffering."

In the New Testament we find the Apostle Paul speaking of the suffering and problems brought on by the curse of sin in the world.

Romans 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."

All things … that's what Paul said, "all things" according to His purpose, whether we like it or not. All means … "all, any, every, the whole thing" with nothing left out.

Not only does God "order" your lot in life, in Ephesians 1:11, Paul states "… according to the purpose of Him who worketh all things after the counsel of His own will."

Worketh means … "to be active" and involved in all things. God not only directs things in your life but is also "actively involved working" them.

There are times when God is the cause of how things work in our lives. At other times our decisions may be the direct result of His influence at work on our lives to bring about His Sovereign Will.

I believe that God is sovereign over everything that happens in the world either by direct cause from His hand or the secondary causes He has already placed in nature … including the curse of sickness and disease operated by Satan.

I've said it before and I will say it again … part of being Sovereign is that God must be in total control of everything created … everything. If there is even one molecule that is not under His control, one tiny little speck running around in God's created universe that He is not in control of … just one … then that means that God is not in total control of what He made.

If anything is outside of His authority, outside of His control … including Satan and sickness; then He is no longer God over all things … and that can not be. God therefore is … ultimately responsible … for everything.

Why does God allow trials? We usually need an attitude adjustment.

Proverbs 3:11-12 … "My son, do not despise or shrink from the chastening of the Lord [His correction by punishment or by subjection to suffering or trial]; For whom the Lord loves He corrects, even as a father corrects the son in whom he delights." Amp.

The writer of Hebrews also speaks to this …

Hebrews 12:5-6 … "And ye have forgotten the exhortation which speaketh unto you as unto children, My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of him: For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, (disciplines) and scourgeth (flogs) every son whom he receiveth."

Ecclesiastes 3:1 … "To every thing there is a season, and a time for every purpose under heaven …"

God has a purpose for what He does and what He allows and even a time when it is to be performed. God governs the world; but we cannot always see … the reasons for His conduct.

If there is one thing I have learned about God … His conduct … should never be called into question.



Comments welcome.

The High Ground

"And it came to pass that God did test Abraham; and He said … 'Take thine only son Isaac and get thee into the land of Moriah; and offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of.'

And Abraham rose up early in the morning and took Isaac his son, the wood for the burnt offering, and went unto the place which God had told him. Then sometime on the third day of the journey Abraham lifted up his eyes, and saw the place afar off." (Genesis 22:1-4 … edited)

This is the grand crisis, the crowning event in the history of Abraham, and it is now taking place. He has been called to a high and singular destiny that no other man will be asked to fulfill. He is called upon to do what no one other than God the Father would be willing to do, and that is … to offer his only Son as a sacrifice.

Isaac as a sacrifice needs to be thought of as what is called a shadow and type of the coming Messiah … Jesus, the Lamb of God who was also the only begotten Son of God.

Abraham has obeyed the call. From the years of delay that Abraham experienced in seeing God fulfill the promise of his son Isaac being born, he has been taught to simply believe in the word of God. If God said it, that was good enough for him; he knew it would come to pass.

Abraham didn't question. When God called his name he said … here I am … ready to once again obey His commands, be what they may. God had promised him that he would be the father of many nations, and yet God was now going to require him to kill his only son, and offer him as a sacrifice … for what?

The issue was not that God desired the sacrifice of Isaac by killing and burning him upon the altar; but rather Abraham's complete surrender, and a willingness to offer him up to God even by death.

It didn't matter … he would obey knowing God's promise was still good. If it was necessary, God would just have to raise Isaac from the dead.

The place where God wanted it done … in the land of Moriah … was a three day journey. But why there? I believe there were two reasons.

1.) A three day journey would give Abraham time to consider what he was about to do … kill his son. That would give him time to change his mind, time to turn around and go home. And if he went on and did it, he must do it deliberately, kill him as a sacrifice; he was to cut the throat of his son, cut up his quarters, and then lay every piece in order upon the wood and then burn all to ashes. This he was to do with religious deliberation, seriousness, and with devotion to God.

2.) The land of Moriah … nothing was there yet, it was just a valley with some small mountains around it. God told Abraham … "offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of." What's so special about this one mountain that God picks out as the spot where Isaac will be offered? This was the hill country of the land of Canaan; in fact it was the exact location where Jerusalem would later be built. The mountain that God chose is just west of where Solomon's temple was to be built. It is the highest ground around Moriah. This spot today is called … Mount Calvary … which is known to be the same mount on which Jesus was crucified.

So, if Isaac was a shadow and type of the coming Messiah; God had a reason to choose the highest ground in the area for this sacrifice to be offered … Jesus later would be lifted up for all to see on this same mountain … higher even than the pinnacle of the temple.

The scripture goes on …

"Abraham took the wood and laid it upon Isaac his son; and he took the fire in his hand, and a knife; and they went both of them together. And Isaac spoke unto Abraham his father, and said, 'Behold the fire and the wood: but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?' And Abraham said, my son, God will provide Himself a lamb for a burnt offering." (Genesis 22:6-8 … edited)

There are two interesting comparisons to be pointed out here … Isaac was bound and Jesus was also bound before they were to be sacrificed; Isaac carried the wood to the top of this mountain; Jesus also carried the wood in the form of the cross up to the very same place.

Abraham's only son Isaac, (the heir of God's promise) now lies ready to bleed and die by his own father's hand, who never shrinks back from the doing of it. Now this obedience of Abraham in offering up Isaac is a representation, a shadow and type of what God also did for us. God the Father also delivered up His only begotten Son Jesus, (who was God's promise of a Saviour) to bleed and die for us as the Lamb of God; nor did His Father shrink back from the doing of it either.

When Abraham told Isaac that … "God would provide Himself a lamb" … that is exactly what He did. Isaiah 7:14 states … "a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel" … which being interpreted is, God with us.

John said it this way … "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God … and the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father … the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world." (John 1:1, 14 & 29 … edited)

The "Word" in Heaven was just as much God as the Father or Holy Spirit was. It was that part of the Godhead … the spoken Word of God that became … the Lamb of God on earth, the man Jesus. This is how "God would provide Himself a lamb."

God Himself became the Lamb.

The story continues …

"Abraham stretched forth his hand, and took the knife to slay his son; but God said, 'Lay not thine hand upon the lad, neither do thou any thing unto him.' Abraham looked up and behind him a ram was caught in a thicket by his horns; so Abraham went and took the ram, and offered him up for a burnt offering in place of his son."
(Genesis 22:10, 12 & 13 … edited)

There are some who believe and teach that God allowed Abraham to actually kill his son and then raised him from the dead. I personally don't believe so. The first reason is just what the Word says; God said … stop, wait, don't do it. (My translation.)

Then He provided the ram (or Lamb) instead. That's the whole point of all this … providing a way out from the judgment of sin … so man would not have to die.

I believe God never intended for Abraham to kill Isaac. God tests, but never tempts man to sin, which is the second reason … it would have been sin for Abraham to kill another human being, let alone his own son. The Bible is silent on why God had Abraham go through the motions. This is one of the unrevealed secret things that belong unto God.

"The secret things belong unto the LORD our God: but those things which are revealed belong unto us ..." (Deuteronomy 29:29)

To finish the story …

And God said, "By myself have I sworn, for because thou hast done this thing, and hast not withheld thy son, I will bless thee, and I will multiply thy seed as the stars of the heaven, and as the sand which is upon the sea shore … and in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed … because thou hast obeyed my voice."
(Genesis 22:16-18 … edited)

The promise came many years before. The blessing came after Abraham was obedient.

God gave man a free will even knowing that would allow man to choose sin anytime he wanted; and God still did it. So, in one sense … man's sin became God's problem.

God chose … "to take on the responsibility of man's sin Himself."

And He took it on. God, all by Himself. Without help from angels or men; without help from anyone, God redeemed fallen man all by Himself … because no one else could. God had to die. Nothing less would do. God had to pay the price. God bore the full weight of the cost of salvation alone, by Himself.

If man was willing to kill his son … God would have to be willing to kill His Son.

Behold the Lamb of God … lifted up on … the high ground.


Comments welcome.

The Key to Holiness

While looking at some Jewish blogs on the internet, I found the following about a lock and key that was used in Solomon's Temple as well as the Jewish Temple of Christ's day. I believe there is a lesson here that teaches us … "things don't always work as we think they should."

The whole body of sacred Jewish writings and traditions is called the Tanakh, which includes the Torah, the first five books of the Hebrew Scriptures.

When we see something in the Torah (or the Christian Bible) that doesn't seem to make sense, it is a sign that we must look deeper into it. Indeed, there are a lot of things in the world that do not seem to make sense, but then, when we search, usually we find a very good reason for them.

The Torah explains how, early in the morning, the on-duty "kohen" (priest) would unlock the gate to the Temple Sanctuary. Next to the locked gate there was a small hole all the way through the wall. With the key in his hand, he would reach into that hole, all the way up to his armpit. He would then unlock the lock that was on the other side of the gate.

Now, that doesn't seem to make any sense at all. It's backwards! Why in the world would God, the Designer of all things have made such an apparent mistake? You do not design a lock that has to be opened by reaching through a hole in a wall to get to the lock that unlocks and opens from the other side. But since God told man to make it that way, there must be a good reason for it.

Here we have the explanation to one of the greatest spiritual questions of all.

How do I open the upper gate to holiness?

In the Jewish Temple, that inner gate into God's Sanctuary was called "the Gate of Holiness" and opens only from the inside.

It opens from the upper level down to the lower level. We have to do all that we can in order to open that door, that inner gate, but it is only God's kindness from the inside that finally unlocks the lock. We have to take the proper actions in order to come to it, but that wonderful and needed gate to God's innermost spiritual world … opens from the Higher to the lower.

Once again … it's all about Him … not us.


Comments welcome.