He With Whom We Have To Do

“For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.  Neither is there any creature that is not manifest in His sight: but all things are naked and opened unto the eyes of Him with whom we have to do.” (Heb. 4:12f)

Anyone who follows the news knows that little children are frequently the victims of horrible abuse and murder. Innocent children sometimes experience atrocities that are as terrifying, as painful, as horrifying as anyone can imagine. I do not need nor desire to state the gory details of any specific case, but let us consider a hypothetical case.

Suppose there is a wicked man who plans to abduct a little girl, commit horrible atrocities against her, then brutally murder her. This wicked man goes to a park, hides behind the bushes near the playground, and awaits his opportunity. After waiting some time, his opportunity comes. A young mother and her little girl are there alone. The mother goes to the car to get something. She has her back to her little girl for only twenty seconds, but that is enough time for the man to snatch the child, put his hand over her mouth, and run into the woods before the mother sees him. The man runs to his car, shoves the frightened little girl inside, and drives away. He takes his young victim to a secluded location, where he abuses her and ends her life.

Now let us suppose that there is a second person in this story, a person who knows about the wicked man’s plan beforehand. This second person knows all the details of the wicked man’s plan - the date, the time, and the location of the planned abduction. This second person could prevent this crime from happening, with no danger to himself. He could anonymously inform the police, or he could warn the mother to watch her daughter, or he could just go to the park and sit near the playground so that the wicked man would be discouraged by the presence of a witness. This second person could easily prevent this tragedy from happening, but he doesn’t. As a matter of fact, he is at the park when it happens, and he does witness the crime, but he keeps himself hidden from the wicked man. He just sits and watches the man take the little girl. He does nothing beforehand to prevent the abduction, and he does nothing to interfere when the girl is abducted.

What would you think of such a person? Most decent people would say that this second man is a cold, uncaring coward, and should be severely punished for his refusal to do something to prevent this crime from happening.

This hypothetical case which I have just described is not exactly hypothetical. It is real. In fact, most of you reading this probably know this second person. This second person, this unseen witness who is privy to the wicked man’s plans beforehand, is none other than Almighty God. He is the one who has foreknowledge and could easily prevent horrible tragedies like this from happening. He is the one who has the power to stop wicked men from carrying out their evil plans, with no threat or danger to Himself, yet He chooses to let little children be abducted, abused, and brutally murdered.

It is without dispute that God knows about the evil plans of men beforehand. “Yahweh knoweth the thoughts of man” (Ps. 94:11). “Yahweh searcheth all hearts, and understandeth all the imaginations of the thoughts” (1 Chron. 28:9). Other passages of Scripture give additional testimony of God’s omniscience, including Hebrews 4:12f, which says that by His Word, God discerns “the thoughts and intents of the heart. Neither is there any creature that is not manifest in His sight: but all things are naked and opened unto the eyes of Him with whom we have to do.”

The One with whom we have to do knows beforehand the plans and intentions of the wicked. And He is powerful enough to stop the wicked from carrying out their plans. Yet He lets wicked men abduct and victimize little children. He lets it happen again and again and again. Why? No one knows.

As I write this, I am threescore and nine years old. The older I get, the more I realize how little we know of God, and how far removed we are from His ways.

“For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways, saith Yahweh. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts higher than your thoughts” (Isa. 55:8f).

How much higher is heaven than earth? No one knows. Not only are we incapable of comprehending God’s ways and thoughts, we are not even capable of comprehending the vast immeasurable distance between His ways and our ways. If we cannot even know the distance between His ways and our ways, how can we possibly understand His ways and thoughts?

“The secret things belong unto the LORD our God: but those things which are revealed belong unto us and to our children for ever, that we may do all the words of this law” (Deut. 29:29).

Every piece of information in the universe is in one of two categories. It is either in the category of things that are secret, or in the category of things that are revealed.

The secret things belong to Yahweh and are not meant to be known by man. The reason God allows little children to be abducted and raped and murdered is one of those unrevealed secret things. Even if God were to make the knowledge of those secret things available to man, man would be incapable of understanding those things, because some things are simply beyond man’s ability to understand. Man is not equipped to understand some things, just like a blind-from-birth person is not equipped to understand the subtle differences between various shades of blue.

King Solomon said, “The LORD said that He would dwell in the thick darkness” (2 Chron. 6:1). Paul said that God dwells “in the light which no man can approach unto” (1 Tim. 6:16). David said “the darkness and the light are both alike to Thee” (Ps. 139:12).

Whether you prefer to think of God as One who dwells in thick darkness, or as One who dwells in unapproachable light, or as One who dwells in both darkness and light, the darkness is thick and the light is unapproachable. Either way or both ways, the fullness of God remains obscure to mortal man. Like Moses, we are allowed to see only glimpses of the afterglow from the cleft of the Rock as God’s presence passes through our brief lives. Just as Moses hid himself in the cleft of the Rock, so we hide ourselves in the wounds of Messiah, the “Rock of ages, cleft for me.”

In the Song of Solomon, the Bridegroom says to the Bride, “O my dove, that art in the cleft of the rock, in the secret places of the stairs, let me see thy countenance, let me hear thy voice; for sweet is thy voice, and thy countenance is comely” (Song 2:14).

This verse is an ancient echo of Yeshua’s call to His Bride to hide herself in the cleft of the Rock, to go to the secret places of the stairs, the prayer closet, where the spirit can ascend.

Just as the LORD told Elijah “Get thee hence, and turn thee eastward, and hide thyself” (1 Kings 17:3), so Yeshua tells His Bride “Go hide thyself in the wounds of thy Lord, in the cleft of the Rock, in the secret places of the stairs, where angels of God ascend and descend upon the Son of man.”

We need to hear the Bridegroom’s call in Elijah’s call, and get ourselves hence. We need to leave our carnal worldly pursuits, and turn ourselves eastward, away from any Western ways that hold us back from the pursuit of God, and go hide ourselves in the prayer closet, where we can let our Bridegroom see our countenance and let Him hear our voice, for sweet is our voice when it speaks to Him, and our countenance is comely when it looks to Him.

In the prayer closet things are revealed. Some things will remain unrevealed, because they are in the category of “the secret things [which] belong to the LORD.” There are many things that are potentially revealed (i.e., the information is available to us if we will dig for it), but those things are not revealed to us simply because we do not make the effort to dig for them. We do not seek the revelation of those things which “belong unto us and to our children.”

How much potential revelation we forfeit! God “is a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him” (Heb. 11:6). We know this, yet we grow lazy and apathetic and do not diligently seek Him, and we thereby forfeit wonderful revelations which could be ours, revelations of the wonder and splendor and glory of God, clearer revelations of His many Divine attributes - His love, His mercy and kindness, His severity and wrath, His wisdom, His omniscience, His omnipotence, His holiness, His sovereignty, and perhaps even some other Divine attributes of which we are presently unaware.

Of all God’s known attributes, I believe that His sovereignty is among the most neglected.  If you ask a typical church-going Christian to define God’s sovereignty, I suspect many would struggle to explain it.  Perhaps that is understandable, since the word sovereignty is not in the Bible, at least not in the KJV.  Nonetheless, sovereignty is one of God’s attributes, and it is very important to understand what that means.

Past generations understood what the word sovereignty meant. In Noah Webster’s 1828 American Dictionary of the English Language, under sovereign and sovereignty, we read phrases like: “superior to all others”; “a supreme lord or ruler”; “one who possesses the highest authority without control”; “the possession of the highest power, or of uncontrollable power. Absolute sovereignty belongs to God only.”

Most Bible believers have no problem understanding that God is superior to all others and that He is the ruler of the universe. But the aspect of God’s sovereignty which is neglected (or, if considered, is troubling) is the aspect of God’s power being “without control” and “uncontrollable” and “absolute.”

People are okay with the idea of an all-powerful God if they can exercise some control over Him, if they can bridle Him and tame Him and guide Him, or if He agrees to somehow be accountable to His creatures. But if this were the case, God would not really be all-powerful, for His power would be limited by His creatures.

Simply put, God’s sovereignty means that God can do whatever He wants, whenever He wants, however He wants, with whomever He wants, and to whomever He wants. He does not answer to any higher authority, for there is none. And He certainly does not answer to any lower authority. “But our God is in the heavens: He hath done whatsoever He hath pleased” (Ps. 115:3). In other words, He is the Boss, and He has no boss over Him. He does not need to explain Himself to anyone to justify His actions or His inactions.

If you have a revelation of God’s sovereignty, it makes life much easier. I do not claim to have a full and clear revelation of God’s sovereignty, but the revelation that I do have helps me to accept some things that lots of people struggle with.

I have no problem accepting the fact that God commanded the genocide of certain nations in Canaan, even commanding the extermination of little children and babies. He has that right, and He had a reason to do it.

I have no problem accepting the fact that God chooses to not reveal certain things to man, to keep some things secret. He has that right, and He knows which things we are better off not knowing.

I have no problem accepting the fact that bad things sometimes happen to good people. I do not like it, but I accept it because it happens. God knows what He is doing, even when I do not.

I have no problem accepting the fact that many people go through the wide gate and onto the broad way that leadeth to destruction, and few go through the strait gate and onto the narrow path that leadeth unto life. It grieves me that many will perish, and few will be saved, but I have to accept it because it is true. Yeshua said so.

“But Daniel, wasn’t Jesus just using hyperbole in that statement, just deliberately exaggerating to make a point?”

Maybe, but I would not count on it. In Noah’s day, only eight souls were saved out of the entire population of the world. The words “many” and “few” were not hyperbole in the days of Noah, and “as the days of Noah were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be” (Matt. 24:37).

I have no problem accepting the fact that on Judgment Day the Lord will say to some, “Depart from Me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels” (Matt. 25:41).

I do not enjoy speaking or writing about the eternal fate of unrepentant sinners who will be forever cut off from God, weeping and wailing and gnashing their teeth in outer darkness, tormented in the lake of fire, irretrievably lost and forever without hope. I do not enjoy talking about these things, but as a Bible teacher I am obligated to include these Bible truths as part of the whole counsel of God. According to Hebrews 6:2, eternal judgment is one of the six foundational “principles of the doctrine of Messiah.”

Sabbath-keeping Messianic people are fond of showing Sunday Christians Isaiah 66:22-23, which says that the Sabbath and new moons will be kept in the new earth. “See? See?” the Messianic eagerly explains. “Everyone in the new earth will be keeping the Sabbath and celebrating the new moons after Yeshua returns! If you’re not doing it now, you’ll be doing it then! So if you plan to be in the kingdom, you may as well start keeping the Sabbath now!”

There’s nothing wrong with pointing out Isaiah 66:22-23 that way. However, I don’t think I’ve ever heard a Messianic believer continue on to the next verse, the final verse of Isaiah, which describes what that worship on Sabbaths and new moons will include:

“And they shall go forth, and look upon the carcases of the men that have transgressed against Me: for their worm shall not die, neither shall their fire be quenched; and they shall be an abhorring unto all flesh” (Isa. 66:24).

Many Bible believers, including Messianics, tend to shy away from this verse. However, Yeshua did not shy away from it. He quoted it. And when He quoted it, He tripled the effect by saying “where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched” three times, as it is written:

“And if thy hand offend thee, cut it off: it is better for thee to enter into life maimed, than having two hands to go into hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched: where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched. And if thy foot offend thee, cut it off: it is better for thee to enter halt into life, than having two feet to be cast into hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched: where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched. And if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out: it is better for thee to enter into the kingdom of God with one eye, than having two eyes to be cast into hell fire: where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched” (Mark 9:43-48).

I do not claim to know all the details about the afterlife, but I do know some things. I know that Yeshua took Isaiah’s statement seriously, and spoke about “the fire that never shall be quenched” (Mark 9:45) and about “everlasting fire” (Matt. 25:41) and of the transgressors’ “worm [that] dieth not.”

I also know that an ever-living worm, regardless of what form it takes, needs to feed on something, and an ever-burning fire, regardless of what form it takes, needs something for fuel.

“Where no wood is, there the fire goeth out” (Prov. 26:20). Just as physical fire in the physical realm needs something for fuel, and just as a physical worm in the physical realm needs something for food, so this ever-burning fire needs something for fuel, and this ever-living worm needs something for food. According to Isaiah 66 and Mark 9, the carcases of transgressors will be the food for the ever-living worm and the fuel for the ever-burning fire. And in the new earth, we will go forth and look at those burning, worm-eaten carcases from Sabbath to Sabbath and from new moon to new moon, the Bible says.

“But Daniel, surely this is just figurative language, and not something that will literally happen.”

Well, if that’s the case, then maybe Isaiah’s promise of a new heaven and a new earth is just fancy figurative language and will not really happen literally. Maybe the idea of a literal new earth is just a fairy tale. If you insist that the promise of a new earth is literal, and the keeping of the Sabbath and new moons is literal, then why would the very next verse, which describes what we will do from Sabbath to Sabbath and from new moon to new moon, not be literal?

Many people have a difficult time believing what the Bible says about the fate of the wicked. I do not like it, but I believe what the Bible says. I am able to accept it because I understand that God is sovereign.

In regards to the fate of the wicked, many people want to dismiss Yeshua’s words in Luke 16 about the rich man and Lazarus as “just a parable.” Parable or not, this passage of Scripture contains the most vivid and detailed description of the afterlife anywhere in the Bible, and these words come from the mouth of our Lord. Therefore I cannot dismiss it and regard it as something irrelevant to the afterlife. There may be different ways to interpret some of the details, but it cannot be dismissed as “just a parable” that has nothing to do with the fate of the lost in the afterlife.

Some people say, “I can’t believe that a loving God would let lost souls go to everlasting fire.”

In reply, I say this: Our loving God lets little children get raped, murdered, and thrown away like a piece of garbage. God lets faithful Christians get imprisoned, tortured, and beheaded. Not that long ago, God let six million Jews die in Nazi concentration camps. God has been letting multitudes of innocent people suffer horrible agonies for six thousand years in this age. If God allows His own covenant people whom He loves, both Jews and Christians, to suffer the fires of Auschwitz and fiery trials of persecution in this age, then why is it so difficult to believe that He will let sinners who follow the devil go into the everlasting fire prepared for the devil? If a man follows the devil, he goes where the devil goes, and that is ultimately into the everlasting fire.

God is the great I AM. He is the one and only Uncreated, Self-Existent Sovereign inside and outside of the created universe. He answers to no one. He is not obligated to justify His actions or to explain Himself to anyone. On the Day of Judgment, He will judge righteously, and every mouth will be stopped. His judgment on that day will be unchallenged.

I believe that people’s difficulty in accepting what the Bible says about the fate of unrepentant lost souls is partly due to their low view of God’s sovereignty, and partly due to their view of sin. If people saw sin the way that God sees sin, if they saw even just a quick glimpse of what sin looks like to God, perhaps they would not have such a hard time believing what the Bible says about the eternal fate of unrepentant sinners. Perhaps they would see that unrepentant sinners are getting exactly what they deserve.

It’s one thing to know and to quote Jeremiah’s words that say “the heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked” (Jer. 17:9), but another thing to really know this. That is why Jeremiah’s divine diagnosis of the human heart is immediately followed by the rhetorical question “Who can know it?” The answer to that question is “Only God, and those with whom He shares that knowledge.”

There is so much about God that we do not know. Maybe you think you have a very deep knowledge of God, and compared to some people, maybe you do. But regardless of how much knowledge of God you have, it is only a small drop in the ocean. Yea, less than a small drop in the ocean, because an ocean has boundaries and a shore, but the knowledge of God goes on, and on, and on, and on, world without end.

Zophar said to Job, “Canst thou by searching find out God? Canst thou find out the Almighty unto perfection? It is as high as heaven; what canst thou do? deeper than hell; what canst thou know?” (Job 11:7f).

Can we by searching find out God? If we search in the wrong places and in the wrong ways, No. If we expect to find out everything there is to know about God, No. But if we seek Him for the right reasons, in the right way, and even at the right time (for Isaiah 55:6 says “Seek ye the LORD while He may be found, call ye upon Him while He is near,” implying that there are times when He may not be found, and times when He is not near), we can find Him.

God is a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him. If you diligently seek Him, you will find Him. And when you find Him, you will discover to your eternal delight that He is just like Yeshua. “He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father” (John 14:9).

No one can adequately explain why an all-powerful loving God sometimes allows innocent people to suffer horribly. The answer to that question is one of the unrevealed secret things that belong to the LORD our God.

Hebrews chapter 11 lists many heroes of the faith, some of whom suffered horribly: mockings, scourgings, bonds and imprisonment, being stoned, sawn asunder, slain with the sword, wandering in sheepskins and goatskins, being destitute, afflicted, tormented, wandering in deserts and mountains and dens and caves of the earth.

After listing these sufferings, the writer of Hebrews does not explain why suffering exists. Rather, he just tells us to lay aside every weight and every besetting sin, and run with patience the race that is set before us, “looking unto Yeshua, the author and finisher of our faith” (Heb. 12:2). As the old song says, “Turn your eyes upon Jesus, look full in His wonderful face, and the things of earth will grow strangely dim in the light of His glory and grace.”

| DB