“Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? Declare, if thou hast understanding.” Job 38:4
Dear Ones:
In the book of Isaiah, the Lord asks two questions very similar to the one which He asked Job: “Who has directed the Spirit of the Lord, or being His counselor has taught Him? With whom took He counsel, and who instructed Him, and taught Him in the path of judgment, and taught Him knowledge, and showed to Him the way of understanding?” (40:13-14) What is His point? It is that as God, the Creator, and Redeemer, is the beginning of knowledge, and the revelation of truth. Paul would put it like this: “…Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God.” (1 Cor. 1:24) He goes on to say that “…Christ Jesus, who of God, is made unto us wisdom.” (v.30) Why does He tell us these things of Christ? First of all, because it is the truth. And secondly, that we might take our truthful place before Him, and trust Him fully according to the truth of His character, and the certainty of His words. Contrast this picture of Christ with the “wisdom” and “knowledge” coming from man. Look at the difference between man’s “ways” and “means,” as opposed to those of God. Scripture declares that “…the nations are as a drop of a bucket, and are counted as the small dust of the balance.” (40:15) If God is so great, and we are so small, how is it that man has such a twisted, and over-blown attitude concerning his greatness and self-sufficiency? It is because of what happened in the Garden of Eden, when Adam disobeyed God. When he ate of the fruit of the “tree of the knowledge of good and evil,” he substituted the truth of God for the lie of Satan. Instead of the pure light of the truth of God, darkness would enter into the soul of man, a blindness that would contort the truth of God, and at the same time, twist the truth about his own existence. Instead of Christ, filling his vision, the vision of his sinful self would fill it. Where there was the pure experience of the holy life, love, and goodness of God, the power and wisdom of Christ known in its fullness, now there would be only the glimmer of truth revealed and embraced. How does the knowledge of this reality affect us? And what is God’s solution for it?
The “knowledge of evil,” of which the Lord spoke, is man’s independent way, as opposed to that of God, the Creator of the world. However, in one of the most critical of passages in the Bible, Isaiah reveals to us what is God’s way in dealing with the “evil of our ways.” He writes: “…we have turned every one to his own way…and the Lord (the Father) has laid on Him (Christ), the iniquity of us ALL.” God, in His wisdom took all of our ways and thoughts which are audaciously, and defiantly against God, placing them upon the Lord Jesus on the cross. For the one who comes to grips with this reality, and is willing to be free from the lies and distortions of truth, coming from the enemy, God is willing to hear their cry for forgiveness and deliverance. Our Maker and Redeemer has done everything He possibly can to save us. Our responsibility is to trust Him for it.
Dear Father, we choose to lay at Thy feet “our thoughts and ways,” in order to embrace Yours. We do this by asking Thee for grace to trust Thee fully, and by committing our whole hearts and lives to Thee. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
Love, Dad