Ecclesiastes 5:1-7

Walk prudently when you go to the house of God; and draw near to hear rather than to give the sacrifice of fools, for they do not know that they do evil.
Do not be rash with your mouth,
And let not your heart utter anything hastily before God.
For God is in heaven, and you on earth;
Therefore let your words be few.
For a dream comes through much activity,
And a fool's voice is known by his many words.
When you make a vow to God, do not delay to pay it;
For He has no pleasure in fools.
Pay what you have vowed—
Better not to vow than to vow and not pay.  Do not let your mouth cause your flesh to sin, nor say before the messenger of God that it was an error. Why should God be angry at your excuse and destroy the work of your hands?  For in the multitude of dreams and many words there is also vanity. But fear God.  Ecclesiastes 5:1-7

Notice what God says about speaking:

Proverbs 10:19: “In the multitude of words sin is not lacking, but he who restrains his lips is wise.”

Proverbs 17:27: “He who has knowledge spares his words, and a man of understanding is of a calm spirit.”

James 1:19: “Therefore, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath.”

James 3:2: “For we all stumble in many things. If anyone does not stumble in word, he is a perfect man, able also to bridle the whole body.”

So many verses give similar counsel about speech that one cannot help but understand the importance that God places on being careful about what we allow to leave our mouths. Matthew 12:35-37 drives this point home:

A good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth good things, and an evil man out of the evil treasure brings forth evil things. But I say to you that for every idle word men may speak, they will give account of it in the day of judgment. For by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned.

Speaking is a major aspect of character, providing a clear window into our hearts. A quotation often mistakenly attributed to Abraham Lincoln is apropos to the passage in Ecclesiastes 5:1-7: “Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and remove all doubt.” What sets Solomon's counsel apart from other verses on speaking is that the others are good advice for relationships in general. Solomon's verses, however, are focused directly on a person's relationship with God.

What do we talk about when we are before God? Before going any further, we should clarify the nature of being “before God.” Solomon says that we must not forget that God is in heaven and we are on earth, implying His sovereignty. Yet, he also mentions going to the House of God, implying a specific place and time we go before God. Is Solomon's main concern here on God's sovereignty or on the specific place? Since the unwritten but over-arching theme throughout Ecclesiastes is that everything in life matters, his main concern here is a gentle reminder that we are always before God.

Matthew 10:39

He who finds his life will lose it, and he who loses his life for My sake will find it.  Matthew 10:39

Commentator Albert Barnes explains:

The word "life" in this passage is used evidently in two senses. The meaning may be expressed thus: He that is anxious to save his "temporal" life, or his comfort and security here, shall lose "eternal" life. . . . He that is willing to risk or lose his comfort and "life" here for my sake, shall find "life" everlasting, or shall be saved.

This scripture is one of six similar scriptures scattered through all four gospels (Matthew 16:25; Mark 8:35, Luke 9:24; 17:33; John 12:25).

Jesus attaches a double meaning to the word "life": a lower, physical, and temporal meaning and a higher, spiritual, eternal meaning. Christ warns us that we must make an entire sacrifice of the lower for the higher. For if we do not completely and wholeheartedly surrender the lower for the higher, we will lose both. "When we learn how to die, we learn how to live." Indeed, to learn how to die physically is to learn how to live spiritually (Romans 6:6; II Corinthians 5:17).

Then Jesus said to His disciples, "If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it. For what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul?" (Matthew 16:24-26)

As Christ tells us, if we want to seek Him, we must follow Him and surrender to God everything—our wills, our bodies, and our lives. The self must be denied because our carnal mind is driven by pride and an underlying belief and desire that we must get things for ourselves. We must subsequently live our lives as living sacrifices (Romans 12:1), following Christ's example of complete submission to the Father's will. If we are anxious to save, to preserve, our physical lives and/or to put our security in physical things, we will lose our spiritual lives.

Those who seek to gain the world's physical treasures (Matthew 6:19-21) will lose the Father's spiritual treasures. All of the world's physical treasures are not enough to purchase one eternal life, but if we are willing to sacrifice everything—and it takes everything—if we, with complete trust in Him, put everything in our faithful Creator's hands, we will find everlasting life.

As Christ tells us in Matthew 10:39 and its parallel scriptures, if we want to know Him, we must surrender everything to God. He instructs us to follow His giving example of total self-sacrifice in devotion to God's will. He teaches us to deny the self because our carnal mind is driven by the way of get, which always forces us off the right path. Finally, He advises us to sacrifice entirely the lower, physical, temporal life for the higher, spiritual, eternal life. For if we do not completely and wholeheartedly surrender the lower for the higher, we will lose both.

In our daily prayer and self-evaluation, we should ask ourselves, "Is today the day? Have I surrendered everything to God and am I ready? Am I doing all I need to do? Am I being the person that God wants me to be?" We must remember that life can end in an instant, but we are to live in the fear of God, not in the fear of death. In order to live, we must first learn to die.

John 14:12

Most assuredly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do he will do also; and greater works than these he will do, because I go to My Father.  John 14:12

When we first read this verse, most of us think that Jesus is talking about miracles, signs, wonders, and healings, that is, that those of us who really believe in Him will be able to do those great works. However, He may not be thinking only about such grand acts.

He is probably also suggesting that the great works we will do are the day-to-day works of Christian living—not necessarily the ones that will make the lead story on the evening news. He means things like having good relations with one's spouse and children. He means overcoming a sin and growing in character. He means helping others in their walk toward the Kingdom of God. In the end, these are far greater works than miracles and spectacular healings.

Consider the twelve apostles. How many people did Jesus convert during His ministry? Acts 1:15 tells us that the number of disciples was only 120. Yet, just a few pages later, we find that the apostles did even greater works, baptizing 3,000 on Pentecost (Acts 2:41) and 5,000 on another day (Acts 4:4). People were saying that the apostles had "turned the world upside down" (Acts 17:6)! Their greater works were preaching the gospel, feeding the flock, and helping others to overcome and grow toward the Kingdom of God. Sure, they did their share of miracles, but their most lasting, eternal works were their preaching and their Christian sacrifices for the gospel.

Jesus said no one was greater than John the Baptist (Matthew 11:11), and what did he do? He did not perform one miracle, but he preached repentance (Matthew 3:1-2), which is a great work. It makes people realize that they are sinful and that they need a Savior to redeem them and to help them turn their lives around. Many were baptized and later followed Christ.

We need to apply this personally. What great works are we supposed to do? They may be mundane—overcoming sin, growing in character, producing spiritual fruit, and encouraging others in their walk with God—but they are the day-to-day Christian activities that, in the end, will assure that not only will we be in the Kingdom but those we love and fellowship with will be too. Those are truly great works! "Miraculous" works may be flashy and draw a lot of attention, but the greatest works are the ones with eternal consequences, those that help others maintain a firm grasp on salvation.

In Acts 10:38, Peter pares the life of Christ down to just a few insightful phrases: ". . . how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power, who went about doing good . . ." That is the gist of His life: He did good with every minute He lived. The apostle Paul gives us similar marching orders in Galatians 6:10: "Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all, especially to those who are of the household of faith." If we follow this advice, following in the footsteps of Jesus Christ, we will one day be where He is.

Hebrews 2:9-12

But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels, for the suffering of death crowned with glory and honor, that He, by the grace of God, might taste death for everyone.  For it was fitting for Him, for whom are all things and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons to glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings.  For both He who sanctifies and those who are being sanctified are all of one, for which reason He is not ashamed to call them brethren, saying: "I will declare Your name to My brethren; In the midst of the assembly I will sing praise to You."  Hebrews 2:9-12

Hebrews 2:9-11 opens to us a spiritual reality that we must come to understand and appreciate if we are to make the most of this wonderful opportunity of salvation that God gave to us completely unbidden. Because of our disobedience and the resulting curse of death placed on us, we could never experience what is said of us in Psalm 8:4-8, which the author of Hebrews refers to here. However, Jesus suffered death and gained the victory for us. As a result, He wears the crown of glory and rules the universe. We know this Being as God-in-the-flesh, but the author uses His earthly name, Jesus, so that we can see the historical setting of His victory.

"Jesus" calls to mind the concept of salvation, as it means "savior." The author writes that Jesus accomplished the redemption of His people by "tast[ing] death," not—interestingly—by merely "dying." To taste death is a graphic illustration of the painful way He suffered and died. He was not spared this excruciating trauma because He was the Son. He experienced suffering, both physical and emotional, to the very marrow of His bones.

In Hebrews 2:10, we find that the "everyone" of verse 9 is, in realty, not in this context the whole world, but it is limited to the "many sons" being brought to glory—in other words, the church. He bore the suffering that should have come upon us as the wages of our sins. He is the Author, the Pioneer, the Trailblazer, the Forerunner, going before us to our salvation. He is the One clearing the path, as it were, as we make our way following our calling. In Hebrews 12:2, He is called "the author and finisher [or perfecter] of our faith." The Father made Him pass through gruesome suffering in our behalf.

He completed His preparation for the responsibility that He now holds as our High Priest; the Father has charged Him with the task of preparing many others to share life with them in the Kingdom of God. Jesus, therefore, is the One who makes men holy. The path to sanctification lies in obedience to doing God's will, and that obedience is to be given out of gratitude because one understands and knows the Father and Son from within an intimate relationship (John 17:3).

Verse 12 quotes Psalm 22:22, putting the words in Jesus' mouth: "I will declare Your name to My brethren; in the midst of the assembly I will sing praises to You." In the holy Family of God, this spiritual relationship supersedes all human aspects. Jesus died for our sins; He redeemed us from the curse of sin; He forgives our sins; He gives us gifts; and He leads us to glory. Because of His sacrificial work, He is not ashamed to give us the name "brothers"! This implies that we, in turn, may call Jesus our Brother. What a privilege to be called brothers of the Son of God!

Genesis 18:20-21

And the LORD said, "Because the outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is great, and because their sin is very grave, (21) I will go down now and see whether they have done altogether according to the outcry against it that has come to Me; and if not, I will know."  Genesis 18:20-21

We live in a land today where sin is discussed and displayed daily. Some of our own major cities could easily compare to Sodom or Gomorrah because of their blatant depravity. Even some of our smaller cities and towns have homosexual mayors and commissioners who flaunt their perversions in public. "Gay rights" is a major social concern to those who practice such degeneracy.

Though sexual corruption is the sin most associated with Sodom, the people of that city displayed other evil traits. Ezekiel 16:49-50 lists some of their other sins:

Look, this is the iniquity of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters had pride, fullness of food, and abundance of idleness; neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy. And they were haughty and committed abomination before Me; therefore I took them away as I saw fit.

The Sodomites also resorted to violence quickly when they were crossed. In a December 3, 1995, article in The Charlotte Observer, Linnet Myers reported:

-Within the Western industrialized world, the United States not only is the undisputed leader in murder, but in rape as well.

-According to the International Criminal Police Organization's 1990 statistics, England reported 6.7 rapes per 100,000 population; France, 8.1; the Netherlands, 8.9; Switzerland, 6.2; Germany, 8.2; Poland, 5.9.

-The United States reported 41.2.

Former Secretary of Education William J. Bennett, author of the popular Book of Virtues, spoke of other shameful categories in which the U.S. leads the world:

But, during the same thirty-year period [1960-1990], there was a 560 percent increase in violent crime; more than a 400 percent increase in illegitimate births; a quadrupling of divorces; a tripling of the percentage of children living in single-parent homes; more than a 200 percent increase in the teenage suicide rate; and a drop of 75 points in the average SAT scores of high school students. . . .

Consider, too, where the United States ranks in comparison with the rest of the industrialized world. We are at, or near, the top in rates of abortions, divorces, and unwed births. We lead the industrialized world in murder, rape, and violent crime. (Imprimis, November 1995, p. 3)

Our society is certainly similar to the one into which Lot led his family. In his selfishness and greed, he purposely chose to expose his children and servants to the depravity of Sodom where Satan lay in wait like a hungry lion (I Peter 5:8). We, already living in Satan's world, are commanded, "Come out of her, my people, lest you share in her sins, and lest you receive of her plagues" (Revelation 18:4). God wants us to make strides to overcome the ungodly practices that we have absorbed from "this present evil world" (Galatians 1:4, KJV).

Genesis 1:26-27

Then God said, "Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth."  So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.  Genesis 1:26-27

The word "image" is translated from the Hebrew tselem, and it means "shape, resemblance, figure, shadow." There is nothing abstract in it. This same word is used in Genesis 5:3:

And Adam lived one hundred and thirty years, and begot a son in his own likeness, after his image [tselem], and named him Seth.

Adam lived 130 years and begot a son in his own likeness, after his shape, after his resemblance, after his figure, after his shadow. There is absolutely no argument from anyone anywhere about the meaning of "image" here. There is nothing abstract.

Even as the animals reproduced after their kind, so did Adam and Eve reproduce after their kind. What was reproduced was in the form and shape of Adam and Eve. It was in their image. It is only when we apply this to God that people begin to question. All go on the assumption that God really does not have any shape—it is only something that He uses when convenient. However, that is not what the Bible testifies.  If we want to be accurate with the scriptures, we must be consistent with the way these words are used in the Scripture. The same word is used of Adam and Eve as is used of God.

This word is also used in Exodus 20:4—right in the commandment: "You shall not make for yourself a carved image [tselem]. . . ." This is the same word as Genesis 1:26. Does anybody contend that these images do not look like eagles, dragons, snakes, or men or women? No, the image, the idol, looks like something that is a resemblance, the shape, the form of what it is being copied from. This word can also be found in Leviticus 26:1; Psalm 106:19; and Isaiah 40:18-20; 44:9-17.

Seventeen times the word tselem appears in the Old Testament, and even the liberal Interpreter's Dictionary of the Bible, which goes to great lengths to avoid saying it, admits that concrete form and physical resemblance must be considered for Genesis 1:26-27: "Perhaps we may conclude that, while much of the thought that there is an external resemblance between God and man may be present, Ezekiel, who was a priest, has it" (vol. II, p. 684).

The Scripture cannot be broken; they do not contradict one another. They have to grudgingly admit that it is there in the Bible. Man looks like God. Continuing the quote: "However cautiously he states it, P [P stands for priestly, one of the four different groups of people who edited the Bible] seems to have reached a measure of abstraction."

They are very sneaky. Well, maybe there is a concrete resemblance, and we know that Ezekiel has it, yet the fellow who wrote Genesis 1, perhaps he reached a measure of abstraction. How hard it is to give up the assumption!

The same consistency is shown with the word "likeness." In the Hebrew it is demooth, which means, "model, shape, fasten, similitude, and bodily resemblance."
Notice Genesis 5:1, 3:

This is the book of the genealogy of Adam. In the day that God created man, He made him in the likeness [demooth] of God. . . . And Adam lived one hundred and thirty years, and begot a son in his own likeness [demooth], after his image, and named him Seth.

If it is used for God in Genesis 1:26 (God's creation of man in His image), and then we see it here in Genesis 5:1, 3. Do we not have to apply the same discernment of what God intends? The word demooth also appears in Isaiah 40:18; Ezekiel 1:5, 10, 13, 16, 22, 26, 28; 10:1, 22.

When we begin to study the whole subject, we begin to understand why Interpreters had to say that Ezekiel showed man in physical resemblance to God.

Matthew 4:9-10

And he said to Him, "All these things I will give You if You will fall down and worship me."  Then Jesus said to him, "Away with you, Satan! For it is written, "You shall worship the LORD your God, and Him only you shall serve."  Matthew 4:9-10

These two verses clearly establish the most basic element of why we must worship God: because He commands it! He must command us to worship Him because it is possible to worship others and things besides God. Satan was clearly attempting to get Christ to worship him—a being besides God—and to that Jesus replies, referring to the Father, "Him only you shall serve." Not only does He command us to worship Him, He also forbids us to worship any others. In addition, Jesus' statement shows the inextricable link between the worship and the service of God. It is as if they are synonymous. Worship involves highly regarding and then serving the One worshiped.

By definition, we worship what we choose to give the supreme devotion of our feelings, time, and energies to. God must command us to worship Him because we can choose to give our feelings, time, and energies to things other than God. Therefore, acceptable worship of God involves consciously choosing to worship and serve only Him even in the face of the temptation to give these things to others. Notice how Psalm 45:10-11 shows that we must choose between alternatives that will present themselves from time to time. "Listen, O daughter, consider and incline your ear; forget your own people also, and your father's house; so the King will greatly desire your beauty; because He is your Lord, worship Him."

The first four commandments directly address worship. Worship refers to the supreme honor and veneration given in thought and deed to the Creator. Those four commandments plus the tenth directly influence what we are to do or not do to fulfill the minimum requirements of this duty. If we do not do so, we are guilty of idolatry. No other sin has such a direct and concentrated focus of attention. The basic requirement is that we are to worship Him alone, and to allow any person or thing to usurp that position of lordship over us constitutes gross disobedience. The first and most basic reason why we worship God is that He commands it and forbids the worship of others.

Revelation 6:17

For the great day of His wrath has come, and who is able to stand?  Revelation 6:17

Revelation 6:17 should read, "For the day, the great [day] of Their wrath, has come, and who is able to stand?" This is a plain statement of truth followed by a rhetorical question (see Nahum 1:6; Malachi 3:2). The sixth seal announces in unmistakable fashion that "the great day of the LORD is near; it is near and hastens quickly" (Zephaniah 1:14). The prophet Joel describes it:

Blow the trumpet in Zion, and sound an alarm in My holy mountain! Let all of the inhabitants of the land tremble; for the day of the LORD is coming, for it is at hand: A day of darkness and gloominess, a day of clouds and thick darkness, like the morning clouds spread over the mountains. . . . The earth quakes before them, the heavens tremble; the sun and moon grow dark, and the stars diminish their brightness. The LORD gives voice before His army, for His camp is very great; for strong is the One who executes His word. For the day of the LORD is great and very terrible; who can endure it? (Joel 2:1-2, 10-11)

This is the question: Who will survive it? Who will pass God's judgment? The answer seems to be, "No one." But there is hope, as Joel 2:12-14 instructs:

"Now, therefore," says the LORD, "turn to Me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning." So rend your heart, and not your garments; return to the LORD your God, for He is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness; and He relents from doing harm. Who knows if He will turn and relent, and leave a blessing behind Him . . .?

Jesus gives us His answer in Luke 21:36: "Watch therefore, and pray always that you may be counted worthy to escape all these things that will come to pass, and to stand before the Son of Man." We must be alert and prepared for what may come, and the most important part of our preparation is the strengthening of our relationships with the Father and the Son through prayer, study, meditation, and obedience to His instructions. This is the only means to escape God's wrath.

Gather yourselves together, yes, gather together, O undesirable nation, before the decree is issued, or the day passes like chaff, before the LORD's fierce anger comes upon you, before the day of the LORD'S anger comes upon you! Seek the LORD, all you meek of the earth, who have upheld His justice. Seek righteousness, seek humility. It may be that you will be hidden in the day of the LORD'S anger. (Zephaniah 2:1-3)

If we wish to avoid the coming stern and destructive judgment of God on recalcitrant mankind, there is no time like the present to seek His face (Psalm 105:4).

Proverbs 24:30-34

I went by the field of the lazy man, And by the vineyard of the man devoid of understanding; And there it was, all overgrown with thorns; Its surface was covered with nettles; Its stone wall was broken down. When I saw it, I considered it well; I looked on it and received instruction: A little sleep, a little slumber, A little folding of the hands to rest; So shall your poverty come like a prowler, And your need like an armed man.  Proverbs 24:30-34

A person who is lazy lacks understanding. He is ignorant of what is happening. This person is not keeping his property in good condition, and so entropy is pulling it into a state of disorganization. That is the way of all material things. He is not doing enough to overcome inertia.

Proverbs has much to say about laziness. It does not matter whether the laziness is in physical or spiritual endeavors. The point here is that little or nothing will be produced by the slothful person.

Many people conquer laziness concerning physical things, such as business matters. I once heard a radio interview of a millionaire many times over who had become that way through a scheme that he took advantage of. It was perfectly legal; there was nothing wrong with it that way. This man said in response to a question, "You don't become rich being lazy. It takes hard work." That is what this passage in Proverbs 24 is saying.

We want to be spiritually rich. We want our relationships to be rich and to produce the right things, so to achieve this will require a good deal of effort on our parts. Secular people learn these principles and put them to work in business, and they prosper as a result of it. However, they avoid making the same effort in spiritual matters.

In the church, this lack of effort produces Laodiceanism. The Laodicean is rich and increased with goods, which means that he is doing all right in the business world, but he is not paying much attention to the spiritual. He is not using the same principles in regard to spiritual things that he does to physical things. Thus, he becomes reasonably well-off materially, but God says that, spiritually, he is wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked (Revelation 3:17).

We need this instruction from Proverbs because what we see in these verses will produce Laodiceanism in us unless we fight against it and overcome it.

Revelation 11:18

The nations were angry, and Your wrath has come, And the time of the dead, that they should be judged, And that You should reward Your servants the prophets and the saints, And those who fear Your name, small and great, And should destroy those who destroy the earth.  Revelation 11:18

We need to expand our thinking on the word "earth" and understand that it figuratively, metaphorically, represents all of creation. It is not just the earth, the orb that is spinning around through space on its appointed path, but all of the things that are on the earth. Above all, it refers to mankind, which lives on the earth.

God says He will destroy those who destroy the creation, and that includes themselves. When man does that, he is telling God that we do not appreciate what He has given us. We have a love of beauty without the love of doing what is right in order to maintain correctly what He has given to us.

By far and away, the most important abuse in all of creation deals with man's relationships with God and fellow man. We abuse our relationships because we do not love righteousness along with beauty. Rather than dressing and keeping the relationships through a love of righteousness, we use and abuse them, too.

We can see this in the divorce rate. People do not get divorces because they love one another. It is because one or the other spouse, or both, have abused the relationship. So the marriage, which was created by God to be the environment in which His spiritual creation would be carried out, is destroyed! Again, God is going to destroy those who destroy the earth, His creation.

The basic reason this occurs is addressed in I John. It is the lack of love for God and of God that is causing this. Loving God is a choice that is open to all Christians. If one does not consider God beautiful and choose to love Him, the only alternative is self-centeredness.

We turn our love in on ourselves, and instead of seeking to please God within a relationship with Him, we instead choose unrighteousness or sin, abusing the relationship between Him and us. All love for fellow man begins first with the love for God. This is why I John tells us it is impossible to love man without loving God first.

We must start thinking about what are we doing in our lives to build our relationship with God, because that relationship is salvation! Is God beautiful to us? Is God's way beautiful to us? If it is not, the self-centeredness will lead to abuse. Self-centeredness is the hallmark of worldliness.

Isaiah 57:15

For thus says the High and Lofty One Who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy: "I dwell in the high and holy place, With him who has a contrite and humble spirit, To revive the spirit of the humble, And to revive the heart of the contrite ones.   Isaiah 57:15

Isaiah writes that God "inhabits eternity," that is, He dwells in perpetuity or lives eternally, continually. Moses puts it a different way in Psalm 90:2, "Even from everlasting to everlasting [or age to age], You are God." However, the way Isaiah constructed the phrase, "inhabits eternity" can mean that God moves freely in time; any period of time is accessible to Him. He made it and has power over it. Whether this was Isaiah's actual intent is unknown.

Understanding this is made more difficult because Hebrew has no general word for "time." Ad, the word used in Isaiah 57:15, simply means "duration, perpetual, continuity." This is similar to the idea behind the name Yahweh, translated "LORD," which means "He who is." This corresponds to "'I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End,' says the Lord, 'who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty'" (Revelation 1:8). God is, has always been and always will be, no matter how men perceive time.

Another of God's names, "I AM" (Exodus 3:14) also implies that men cannot truly understand His relationship to time. Robert Young, author of Young's Analytical Concordance, writes of this word, hayah, "A name indicating rather the unsearchableness of God than his mere existence, as commonly supposed" (p. 506, his emphasis). As Paul points out in Romans 11:33, "Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and His ways past finding out!"

God's eternity allows Him to work out His plan over the whole expanse of time. From the most remote past, He has planned, created, and fulfilled each step of His purpose to bring about His ultimate goal, the birth of sons and daughters into His Family (II Corinthians 6:18). God Himself explains how this works:

Remember the former things of old, for I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like Me, declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times things that are not yet done, saying, "My counsel shall stand, and I will do all My pleasure," . . . Indeed I have spoken it; I will also bring it to pass. I have purposed it; I will also do it. (Isaiah 46:9-11)

Because of God's endless life and His power over events and lives of men, He can prophesy a thing to occur in ancient times and bring it to pass today. Only a Being unconstrained by time could carry out such a long-term feat.

Genesis 2:1-3

"Thus the heavens and the earth, and all the host of them, were finished.  And on the seventh day God ended His work which He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done.  Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it He rested from all His work which God had created and made."  Genesis 2:1-3



The Hebrew word translated here as "rested" is the verb shabath, from which comes the noun form that is rendered in English as "Sabbath."  Interestingly, the primary meaning of this word is not "rest," in terms of relaxing or rejuvenating, but "to desist from exertion" or "to cease."  This makes perfect sense considering that God not get tired (Isaiah 40:28).

Genesis 2 states that at the end of Creation Week, God stopped His physical labors, not because He was tired, but because He was setting an example for us.  Furthermore, God blessed this specific day of the week and sanctified it - He set it apart for a specific purpose.  Just as God deliberately sets apart or sanctifies those people with whom He is working, He purposefully make the seventh day different from the other six.

Thus, not only did God create the Sabbath day - and thus it belongs to Him; Jesus is Lord of the Sabbath (Mark 2:28) - but He also made it separate and distinct from the other six days.  So how can we think that this day belongs to us?  There is not a single second of this sanctified time that we have authority over.  This day is not our day - not for our work, our sports, or our entertainment.  It still belongs fully to God, and only He can dictate it right and proper usage.

It is not that we have no part in this day.  On the contrary, the Sabbath day is the most important day of the week for us as Christians, because it enhances our relationship with God the most.

When we tithe, we decide whether we are going to tithe by choosing whether or not we will submit to God and follow His way.  Once we make the decision to follow God, we give up all claims to the money God requires of us.  If we start "deciding" that money is ours to use, we also choose not to submit to God.  Similarly, once we decide to follow God, we give up all prior claims to the 24-hour period of the Sabbath, to the extent that God requires us to monitor our speech and even our thoughts (Isaiah 58:13-14).

We recognize that God has given us a stewardship responsibility in using the money and material possessions He has provided us, and correspondingly, we have a stewardship responsibility over His holy time and its proper use.  The Sabbath is not our time.  It may belong to God, but He entrusts us with the responsibility to keep it righteously.  We should handle it with care.

Luke 16:27-31

"Then he said, 'I beg you therefore, father, that you would send him to my father's house, for I have five brothers, that he may testify to them, lest they also come to this place of torment.'  Abraham said to him, 'They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them.'  And he said, 'No, father Abraham; but if one goes to them from the dead, they will repent.'  But he said to him, 'If they do not hear Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded though one rise from the dead.'"  Luke 16:27-31

The rich man's last thought flashes to concern for the fate of his five brothers. He utters a final cry to Abraham, begging him to send Lazarus to plead with his brothers to heed his warning testimony. Abraham replies that they had the writings of Moses and the prophets. The rich man, however, thinks his brothers would listen to one from the dead, indicating that he realizes that Lazarus had been resurrected. Abraham replies that, if they would not follow the Scriptures, they would certainly not be persuaded even by one raised from the dead. These final verses show that Jesus' purpose in giving the parable was to reveal the truth of the resurrection.

Other scriptures tell us what happens where this parable leaves off. Matthew 13:30 speaks symbolically of the wicked being gathered into bundles to be burned. Matthew 3:12 records John's warning to the Pharisees that they would be burned up as chaff if they did not repent. They are to be burned in a fire so hot that no amount of water could put it out because the flames would turn the water to steam. When God punishes the wicked, the fire will be unquenchable. This does not mean, however, that it will not burn itself out when it has no more combustible materials to burn. An unquenchable fire cannot be put out, but it can burn itself out when it has consumed everything. Malachi 4:1, 3 also speaks of this fire, reporting the end of the wicked: They will be ashes and smoke (see Psalm 37:20).

In this, Jesus is preaching the gospel of the Kingdom of God, revealing salvation, the resurrection to eternal life as the gift of God, and inheritance of the Kingdom of God on this earth. Jesus teaches that if we refuse to hear Moses and the prophets—if we refuse to believe the inspired, written Word of God—we have no hope of salvation. All Scripture, the whole Bible containing both the Old and New Testaments, is profitable for doctrine and instruction in receiving the gift of salvation (II Timothy 3:16-17).

The Signs of God (Part Three)

As we have seen in Parts One and Two, God is serious about the signs He has given to His people (Numbers 14:11, 22-23). Obedience to His instructions is a general sign (Deuteronomy 11:18), and within obedience to His instruction is the extremely significant sign of the Sabbath (Exodus 31:13, 17; Ezekiel 20:12).

A few other appointed times also contain signs. In Exodus 12:13, the blood of the Passover lamb is designated as a sign—a sign of salvation. For the children of Israel, it symbolized their salvation from God's wrath. We, too, must come under the blood of the Passover Lamb, not by smearing it on doorposts, but through accepting it as the means of spiritual salvation and then living our lives under obligation—another aspect of obedience. If we trample that blood underfoot—if we despise that sign—then we have nothing with which to pay for our sins, and our lives become forfeit, eternally. It is a sign with extensive ramifications.

The Feast of Unleavened Bread contains another sign. In Exodus 13:6-10, God says that eating unleavened bread for seven days, along with abstaining from leavening, is "a sign on your hand" (verse 9). This sign is given, God says, so that His law will be in our mouths. In this case, the sign is in the doing, but it results in our speaking or teaching God's law.

In addition, this sign memorializes God‘s deliverance—His deliverance of Israel from Egypt, as well as His deliverance of us from the powers of darkness. If we shrug off this sign, though, God's instructions leave our mouths. If we diminish its importance, then we despise God's deliverance and risk being ensnared again by sin, Satan, and the world.

God gives signs for good reasons, and it is no wonder that He equates belittling His signs with rejecting Him. Yet, this is exactly what mainstream Christianity has done. The early Catholic Church rejected the sign of the seventh-day Sabbath, substituting Sunday-worship in its place. The Catholic Church readily admits to doing this—claiming that it has the authority—and Protestantism has continued to nod to the papacy by venerating this manmade tradition.

In addition, while the New Testament is crystal clear that Jesus Christ, the disciples, apostles, and early church kept the signs of the Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread, mainstream Christianity has belittled these appointed times. It has instead appropriated the pagan Saturnalia as a hideous tribute to the Savior's birth and the pagan Easter as an absurd attempt to honor His resurrection. Ironically, the sign that Jesus gave to the "evil and adulterous generation" of His day was the sign of Jonah—that He would be in the grave for three days and three nights—which directly contradicts the Good Friday/Easter Sunday tradition. Like the first-century Jews, countless professing Christians in the two millennia since then have made the commandment of God of no effect by these traditions (see Matthew 15:6).

Even among those who observe the Feast of Unleavened Bread, the sign is being undermined in some quarters. Some claim that we do not have to eat unleavened bread each day for seven days. They allege that we should do our best, but it is not a sin if we do not. Yet, when we recall Who the unleavened bread represents, and our great spiritual need to ingest Him each day, it begs the question of how much we in the church are trembling at the Word of God (Isaiah 66:2).

When we take heed to God's Word and bind it to our hands, it is an incredibly positive sign. But if, through rebellion or neglect, we tune out God's instructions, then His Word becomes a testimony against us, and His curses become a new sign. In Deuteronomy 28:45-46, God declares:

Moreover all these curses shall come upon you and pursue and overtake you, until you are destroyed, because you did not obey the voice of the LORD your God, to keep His commandments and His statutes which He commanded you. And they shall be upon you for a sign and a wonder, and on your descendants forever. (Emphasis ours.)

The nations of Israel and Judah rejected God's Word anciently, and all these curses became a sign upon them. Now the iniquity of these nations is becoming full once again. When it does, God will replace His blessings with curses, exchanging the signs that have been despised with a sign of defeat and shame.

Notice, though, that it is called "a sign and a wonder." This sign is accompanied by something conspicuous and miraculous—something that causes astonishment and terror. Ancient Egypt was the dominant power of its day, but God's signs and wonders left that empire in ruins. Because they have shown that they will not obey His voice, He will do the same thing against His own people. If God is against us, then who can be for us?

The signs of God prove even more significant for spiritual Israel, because to whom much is given, from him much will be required (Luke 12:48). They are a critical part of what He is doing with His people, and when we keep them as an integral part of our thinking, they propel us toward the highest goal. But if ignored or despised, they can also become judgments against us, as Israel and Judah have experienced and are beginning to experience again.

Sometimes God's signs are miraculous occurrences, and we tend to look for them as indicators of God's will. Yet, as we have seen, what God instructs us to do can also serve as signs, and they must remain at the forefront of our minds. God's signs are essential blessings that we must never take for granted.

The Signs of God (Part Two)

In Part One, we saw that God is serious about how His people regard the various signs that He has given (Numbers 14:11, 22-23). One of them, found in Deuteronomy 11:18, is the engraving of God's words in our hearts and lives, and binding them on our hands—our works and other activities—so that the divine words influence everything we do. Obedience to God's words becomes a sign to us because it is a testimony that there is a God who wants us to learn to live as He does.

Secondly, obedience is a sign to other people. A distinct difference exists between those who live according to God's instructions and those who do not, and the difference cannot be hidden. The correct actions become a sign—a witness—even without any preaching, which is why God's words are symbolically bound to the hand rather than the tongue. It is easy to say the right things, but the sign only comes through the doing. Through the prophet Isaiah, God says,

These people draw near to Me with their mouth, and honor Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me. And in vain they worship Me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men. (Matthew 15:8-9; Isaiah 29:13)

In Deuteronomy 4:1-14, Moses writes that the commandments, statutes, and judgments would make the nations around Israel stand in awe when they saw the Israelites' manner of life and what it produced. They would recognize the wisdom and the understanding within God's law. If the Israelites had been faithful to bind God's words to their hands, it would have served as a poignant communication to the surrounding nations. It may not have caused them to change their ways, but it still would have been a sign. Yet, as we know, the way of life practiced by most of the Jews of the first century was not a faithful testimony of how God wants mankind to live. What was bound to their hands was their own traditions rather than God's law.

Thirdly, obedience becomes a sign to God. It is a symbol that an individual is committed to living as He lives. Isaiah 66:2 says that God will look on—favorably—him who is poor and contrite in spirit and who trembles at His word. The trembling indicates that the person holds His words in such high esteem that he would not dare ignore them. Our solemn respect for God's instructions signal to Him that we will respond positively to anything He says, and He responds by looking on us with favor.

Within this broad sign of obedience are specifics that God also identifies as signs themselves. One example is seen in Exodus 31:13, 17:

Speak also to the children of Israel, saying: "Surely My Sabbaths you shall keep, for it is a sign between Me and you throughout your generations, that you may know that I am the LORD who sanctifies you. . . . It is a sign between Me and the children of Israel forever; for in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, and on the seventh day He rested and was refreshed."

Along the same lines as Deuteronomy 11:18, keeping the fourth commandment also becomes a sign to the individual, as well as to those around, and to God. However, this sign contains a couple more facets that add to its gravity. Verse 13 declares that a result of keeping God's Sabbaths is that we are continually reminded of God's sanctification—that He has set us apart for His purposes. His sanctification is directly tied here to keeping the Sabbaths holy. This means that, if the Sabbaths stop being a sign (through being treated like any other day), then God's sanctification stops as well. As we saw in Numbers 14, we dare not take any sign of God lightly, but this one in particular is such a core part of our sanctification that it should evoke even more consideration and gravitas.

These verses also show that the Sabbaths are a sign of who God is, as well as who faithful Israel is. To put it another way, the Sabbaths are a sign of the God who creates and who redeems. (The Creator aspect is found in the fourth commandment in Exodus 20:11, and the Redeemer aspect appears in its reiteration in Deuteronomy 5:15.) By the same token, the Sabbaths are also a sign of who is being created and who is being redeemed.

But is this sign only for "the children of Israel," as the verses mention? On the contrary, Mark 2:27 says that the Sabbath was made for—or "on account of"—mankind (Greek, anthropos: "human beings"), not simply Israel. It was instituted on the seventh day of Creation (Genesis 2:2-3), millennia before there were any Israelites. God taught Israel about the Sabbath even before He gave the Ten Commandments and the terms of the covenant (see Exodus 16:1-30).

So when He begins the fourth commandment with the word "Remember," He refers to the Sabbath having existed from creation for all mankind, and not created simply for one nation. Thus the fledgling first-century church—the "Israel of God" (Galatians 6:16)—is shown still keeping the Sabbath after Christ's crucifixion, both Jews and Gentiles alike (Acts 13:14-15, 42-44; 15:14-21; 16:12-15; 17:2; 18:1-11).

To get an idea of the seriousness and depth of this sign, consider what happened to ancient Israel. Ezekiel 20:10-24 shows that Israel greatly defiled God's Sabbaths, and verse 12 repeats the fact that the Sabbaths are a sign and that they are instrumental for sanctification. Despising this sign was one of the main causes for Israel's captivity and scattering.

This critical sign thus also became a judgment, because the people who forgot the sign of the Sabbath also forgot who they were. The house of Israel—the northern ten tribes—does not even know its own identity today. The house of Judah did better about holding onto this sign, so the Jews at least know who they are.

In Part Three, we will examine a few more signs of God.

The Signs of God (Part One)

In Matthew 12:39, Jesus Christ says that "an evil and adulterous generation seeks after a sign." Luke's account shows that this statement was in response to the people testing Him by seeking a sign from heaven (Luke 11:16, 29). By this time in His ministry, Jesus had already performed numerous miracles and signs, and it is unlikely that those who were testing Him had not heard of His works. Rather, they likely wanted something performed for them personally, and they wanted it to be so tremendous as to be undeniable—something from heaven, like manna or perhaps divine fire. But Jesus tells them, in essence, that He is not going to satisfy their every whim. If they would not believe what He had already done, then the sign they should look for would be in the timing of His burial and resurrection—the sign of Jonah.

Jesus calls them an "evil and adulterous generation" because of their unfaithfulness to the covenant. Had they been faithful through obedience, their minds would have been working along the correct track, and there would have been less enmity toward the Messiah. Jesus was not against signs in the least. The gospel of John has a deliberate structure built upon eight signs that point to highly significant things. The Old Testament is likewise filled with signs, as we will see, and they do the same thing—they reveal God and His faithfulness. What Jesus was responding to on this occasion was their hardness of heart, which was unwilling to believe unless they were entertained or had their senses titillated. Christ refused to indulge them, especially when He had given ample evidence already. A miracle so great as to be unbelievable would not actually instill true belief.

The Old Testament contains numerous God-given signs, which—had they been believed—would have made the people of Christ's day more likely to recognize their Savior. When God gives a sign, He expects it to be carefully considered so that it can form the basis of later decisions. Notice, for example, what the pre-incarnate Jesus—the Lord of the Old Testament—said to Moses regarding His signs:

Then the LORD said to Moses: "How long will these people reject Me? And how long will they not believe Me, with all the signs which I have performed among them? .... because all these men who have seen My glory and the signs which I did in Egypt and in the wilderness, and have put Me to the test now these ten times, and have not heeded My voice, they certainly shall not see the land of which I swore to their fathers, nor shall any of those who rejected Me see it. (Numbers 14:11, 22-23)

From this we can see that when God gives a sign, it must not be taken lightly. He expects His people to remember His works. Notice that in verses 11 and 23, God links a lack of belief in His signs with a rejection of Him! The people rejected God by not allowing the signs He gave to be an integral part of their thinking. We will see later that forgetting God's signs leads to forgetting Him.

By way of definition, a sign is a symbol that communicates meaning. The primary Hebrew word translated as "sign," ‘owth, is also translated as "mark," "miracle," and "token." Not all signs have the same significance, though. The mark that God put on Cain (Genesis 4:15) and the banners carried by Israel (Numbers 2:2) were distinguishing indicators, but they do not have the same significance for us today as some of the manifestations of divine revelation. A miraculous omen often accompanies the revelation, but not always. By and large, the signs we are going to consider in this series do not involve miracles, but they are symbols of divine communication and meaning nonetheless.

Deuteronomy 11:18 contains a major sign that remains for us today: "Therefore you shall lay up these words of mine in your heart and in your soul, and bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes."

God is emphasizing the importance of His words, not just the ones found in the context, but all of His instructions. He says they need to be impressed or fixed in the heart and life. He says that they need to be bound to the hand as a sign. The hand is a symbol of activity, especially work. If something is bound to our instruments of work, it will influence everything that is done, and this is exactly what God wants. He wants His instructions bound to us in such a way that every activity is guided and hedged by the words He has given us.

When we do this, it becomes a sign, not in the sense of a miraculous omen, but in the sense that something meaningful is being communicated. The verse does not give many details, but we can infer some of the ways in which obedience becomes a sign. The first is that it is a sign to the one who is following God's instructions because it reminds him that he has received a revelation from God about how to live—a revelation that most of mankind does not see the value of. The person binding God's instructions to his activities receives a communication of the best way to live, and a perpetual statement that there is a God who has made a covenant out of His grace. Obedience is a testimony that there is a God who wants us to learn to live like He does.

But there is something else. Romans 10:4 says that "Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes" (emphasis ours). Because of that translation, many think that Christ brought an end to the law—that He ripped up His own instructions, as if He had made a mistake! In reality, though, it means that Christ is the goal of the law. The goal of obedience to God's instructions is not salvation—for that is a gift—but rather to have the same holy, character image as Jesus Christ. Binding His instructions to our hands is a sign of the goal we are pursuing: trying to live just like the Son of God. That is quite a sign!

Next time, we will continue to examine the sign of heeding God's instructions, and see how God identifies further signs within this sign.

Ephesians 1:11-12

In Him also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestined according to the purpose of Him who works all things according to the counsel of His will, that we who first trusted in Christ should be to the praise of His glory.  Ephesians 1:11-12

Do we get the significance of the truth that He works all things in our lives too, according to the counsel of His will? This truth does not apply to just the "big" things of His overall purpose but even to us! Do we really perceive our relationship to Him as being one of the Potter to the clay?

As He formed and shaped Adam and Eve, He is forming and shaping us, and it is our responsibility to accept and submit. Do we live our lives as though He truly is omnipotent, omniscient, and individually aware of us? Do we conduct our lives in such a manner that we fully understand that this awesome Being is actively and personally involved in what we do?

By viewing Him as Potter, do we grasp that He has every right to mold the clay into whatever form or state and make whatever use of it as He chooses? He can fashion from the same lump one person to honor and another to dishonor. He can determine our sex, race, ethnicity, level of wealth, or location. He is under no law or rule outside of His own nature and purpose. He is a law unto Himself, under no obligation to give an account of His actions to anybody else. He exercises His power as, where, and when He wills.

He is not merely overseeing our lives but actively participating in them, and He is ultimately responsible for what happens in them just as much as those national and worldwide occurrences that we hear in the news. The sovereignty of the Bible's God is absolute, irresistible, and infinite. Our trust is to be in Him.

God's purpose and plan has been and is being carried out as He purposed, and nobody can turn Him aside. Now His purpose and plan has reached out to include us just as He predestined when He declared the end from the beginning. Have we caught the vision?

Are we willing to completely turn our lives over to this Being who does not always act in a way that is pleasant to us? God immediately struck Aaron's sons and Uzzah dead, but He has allowed countless others who perhaps did far worse things to live long and seemingly full lives.

God permitted Methuselah to live almost a thousand years. He chose to endow Samson with strength as no other person ever had. Jesus went to the pool of Siloam and chose one man to heal, paying no attention to the others. Why did He allow the Morgans, Carnegies, Vanderbilts, Rockefellers, and many others to amass incredible wealth, while allowing perhaps billions of people around the world barely to scrape by in miserable poverty?

When the Israelites entered the Promised Land, the city of Jericho and its citizens stood barring their progress. God brought the walls down, and the city's defenses collapsed—the one and only time God did such a thing. Every other city had to be conquered by warfare, risking Israelite lives to take them.

Clearly, He treats and responds to individuals according to the counsel of His own mind, and He answers to no one. He does this even in the lives of His children. The apostle John lived to be around one hundred years old, yet Stephen was stoned to death, Peter crucified, and Paul beheaded.

Considering the witnesses of those great servants, what right do we have to complain about the discomforts He creates for us to endure and grow within? He could rescue everybody in every uncomfortable circumstance, but He does not. Have we fully accepted that He may choose difficult things for us?