Q. What does it mean in Mt 24.12 where it says that the “love of many shall wax cold?”

A. Before we look at what it means we need to define a couple of words. The verse reads “ and because lawlessness is increased most people’s love shall grow cold.” (NASB). The first word we need to define is “lawlessness”, which is “anomos” in Greek. The Greek word for Torah is “nomos” and when you put an “a” before it , it means to be against or “none”. So “anomos” means “no Torah” or in other words people are not obeying God, thus becoming “lawless.” The other word that needs to be defined is “love.” The word there is “agape” and that is God’s kind of love, love that is unmerited. It’s charitable love and the idea Paul was conveying in 1 Cor 13. So with that in mind, let’s look at the verse again in its context. Yeshua is giving signs of the end times. We won’t get into all of that, but He says in verse 12 that because people have a disregard for the Laws of God their God-kind of love will grow cold. So, you have to ask “cold in what way?” There are three areas we will look at . First, their love towards God, which is really what Yeshua is saying here. He said “If you love me, keep my commandments.” Deut 6.4 says we should love the Lord with all our heart, mind and strength and Yeshua said this was the greatest commandment. Well, how do you do that. You love Him by obeying His Word. When you don’t obey Him, you are “lawless” in the sense that His word has no affect on you, you won’t do it. That is not loving the Lord, so your love for Him will grow cold. Paul wrote to the Ephesians that their love for God was well known, but then later in Rev 2.4 Yeshua says they have left their first love and they should repent and do the deeds they did at first, by being obedient. Now, for love to “wax cold” you must have had a love in the first place, which was for the Lord. But, through self-centeredness it grew cold.

Secondly, let’s look at family love. Not obeying the Lord will affect this area, too. To wax cold means to lose the warmth of love for the family and become self-absorbed, self-centered and uncaring for your family. All of these are contrary to God’s word, of course. Do you know why any relationship fails and is destroyed? It’s when one person stops being kind to the other. When parents are unkind to their children, the relationship fails. When one spouse commits adultery, is that being kind to the other? When one abuses the other, is that being kind? Again, when one does not follow what the Lord says (lawless) then the love for your family will grow cold. Lastly, let’s look at some of the social ramifications of this. Society is plagued with this. People will stop acting charitably towards one another as a result of their own sin, or lawlessness. 2 Tim 3.1-4 says: “But realize this, that in the last days difficult times will come. For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, unloving, irreconcilable, malicious gossips, without self control, brutal, haters of good, treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God.” You see, what it all comes down to is when we love God and our neighbor, our love will not grow cold. Now, that doesn’t mean that others won’t mistreat us, cheat on us, hate us ,curse us, try to destroy us, leave us and do all manner of evil against us because they will. People who love themselves tend to gravitate towards people who are kind and charitable because it’s all about what that person can give them. Many marriages fail because those that are self-absorbed marry one who is not like that because they have no intention of giving to the other, but it’s what the other can do for them and it eventually destroys the relationship. In the same way, it’s like that with the Lord. He is a giver and charitable and the selfish want a relationship with Him for what they can get from Him, but when He wants them to give back, they won’t and their love “grows cold.” So, I hope you have a better understanding of this verse and your love for God, family and your neighbor does not grow cold.

Q. I have a general question on Exodus 34.6-7.

Q. I have a general question on Exodus 34.6-7. Can you expand my understanding on these two important verses. Is it true it is a new covenant with his people at that time? (Paul)

A. This portion of the Torah is called the “Midot” or God’s 13 Attributes of Mercy. It has some major commentary in Jewish literature and what we will do is review the events leading up to why God spoke these words and how it relates to the covenant at Sinai. The whole Exodus story is a picture of the individual salvation we receive as believers. They were delivered out of Egypt (the world) by the blood of a lamb (Yeshua) and they arrived at Mt. Sinai. He enters into a covenant with Israel and gives them commandments, which is what He does with a believer today. These commands weren’t meant to save them, they were already delivered but He was going to show them how to love Him, which is the purpose of the commandments even today. Yeshua said “If you love Me, keep My commandments”. Israel then accepted God’s idea of a “holy nation” of kings and priests (Exodus 19.5-8) and then He gives additional laws found from Exodus 20.19-24.11. Moses then will ascend Mt Sinai to receive the stone tablets which were the symbol of this covenant which were the Ten Commandments and the results of disobeying them. God included certain attributes in this first covenant. Well, we know what happened later. Israel disobeys this covenant with the Golden Calf and God is going to destroy Israel and rebuild through Moses, still fulfilling His earlier covenant made with the “avot” or fathers (Abraham, Isaac and Jacob). God’s presence or “shekinah” will not be present and Moses rejects this idea (Exodus 33.12-16). To resolve the problem, God gives a “new covenant” which allows His Shekinah to remain even though Israel may sin in the future. God says that He will grant mercy in certain situations and this will give Israel another chance. As a result, Moses must ascend Mt. Sinai again for another “ceremony” if you will. Now, there is no reason to change the commandments in this new covenant, they will remain as before because it is by obeying them that Israel will be a “holy” (set apart) nation. What changes is how the Lord will relate to Israel and so the 13 attributes of mercy are proclaimed. As a result, God comes down in a cloud and says Exodus 34.6-7. These attributes of mercy will allow God’s Shekinah (presence) to remain with Israel even when they sin. However, these attributes do not guarantee that God will forgive, but they allow for the possibility that He will. To experience His forgiveness, each individual must repent and forsake his sin. Each attribute in 34.6-7 can be researched out for their individual meaning, so that will not be done here, but there is an interesting thing in the Hebrew in verse 7. The word “keep” in v 7 is written with an elongated “nun” in Hebrew and it carries the meaning that God will go “far beyond” or “longer” than what He needs to in being merciful. Now, there is a picture being portrayed here. This “new covenant” is not the New Covenant spoken of by the prophet Jeremiah in 31.31-34 or the gospels and epistles. That covenant can be found in Deut 29.1 through 30.20, but it is a picture of it. The word “new” means to rebuild, or to be renewed. In the New Covenant the commandments don’t change because that is what is being written on our hearts, or desires (Jer 31.33). It also is not symbolized by a physical circumcision but a spiritual circumcision of the heart (Deut 30.6). Now, circumcision of the heart is just another way of saying “live” or to be “born from above” or born again. What changes from the Covenant at Sinai to the Covenant in Moab is how God will relate to it. The Lord told the people to circumcise their own hearts in Deut 10.16 and then says in Deut 29.4 that He did not give them the heart/desire to know Him, or eyes to see or ears to hear. That was the problem with the Covenant at Sinai. They failed and died in the wilderness. The New Covenant was “cut” in Moab with a new generation and not only included those present, but those that will be born later ( Deut 29.14-15). Moab means the “seed of the father”. This covenant will be ratified or “cut” in Yeshua Himself, the seed of the father (virgin birth). So, are you getting the picture. Exodus 34.6-7 is really a prophecy of the New Covenant that will be coming later and God is giving us a picture of how it will work and how He will relate to it. His presence will not leave us even though we sin because it is based on His attributes of mercy for those who believe. Those that don’t believe will not receive the benefits of that mercy and their sin will remain and the wrath of God will have to be carried out. There is much more to this but hopefully this will basically answer your question.

Q.”Is Matthew 5.32 and 19.3-9 correct? I want to explain it to a divorced friend.” (Pete)

A. The area of divorce can be a difficult issue to understand if one does not have a proper biblical foundation to understand it with, so I will try to give a balanced view based on my understanding of the Scriptures and where Yeshua and Paul were coming from. The basis for their view can be found in Deut 24.1-4. The word for “uncleanliness” in verse one is “ervah” and it means improper behavior and can be translated “indecency” in other versions but it does not mean adultery or any uncleanliness found in Leviticus 18, those were punishable by death, so a divorce wasn’t needed. The word used here means anything that made life together impossible because that would lead to cruelty and abuse. Exodus 21.10-11 gives other reasons for a divorce that clarifies what this word can mean. If a husband marries a woman, he cannot reduce her food, her clothing or conjugal rights. He must support her. If he doesn’t, she can initiate a divorce if she is not supported by the husband. Deut 21.14 says he that cannot mistreat his wife. So, with that back-ground a divorce can be initiated if life together becomes impossible due to various, very serious reasons. Adultery was punishable by death, not a divorce. So, what is going on in the verses you cited? Yeshua is freeing up Deut 24.1-4 from all the false interpretations of the Pharisees from the School of Hillel, who was very liberal on divorce. Yeshua says that if you divorce someone for any other reason than the “ervah” of Deut 24.1 causes her to commit adultery ( “Moichao” in Greek) because that is not a biblical divorce. The word in Greek for fornication is “porneia”, where we get pornography from in English and as you can see they are two different words and it is the Greek equivelant to the Hebrew “ervah” of Deut 24.1 and complements it exactly. What he is saying is if you divorce someone in order to marry someone else, that is adultery. That was a big problem in the 1st Century because people were abusing the meaning of the word “ervah” and stretching it to mean if she burned the toast, or did trivial offenses that displeased the other you could divorce her/him. To divorce someone for that was just adultery covered up by a divorce. Another school of Pharisees called the School of Shammai disagreed with the Pharisees of the school of Hillel and agreed with the interpretation Yeshua gave on it. The common people, for the most part, agreed with what the Pharisees from Hillel taught because it was to their advantage and more expedient and Yeshua was giving what God had originally intended through Moses, which sided with what the school of Shammai was saying. Divorce and remarriage was always permissible if done for scriptural reasons. In Matt 19.3-9 it comes up again. The debate there is not over the right to remarry, all the rabbi’s agreed that you could. The argument was over the legal grounds for the divorce. Divorce, war, slavery was never God’s plan “from the beginning” because it does not reflect His perfect character as stated in 19.4 but it was “allowed” because of the hardness of our hearts (19.8) and so He gives the boundaries for doing it the right way. Again, in 19.8, Yeshua says that you cannot divorce in order to remarry someone else, it had to be for biblical reasons already stated in the Torah, and those have already been cited above. We don’t stone people today for adultery, but that breaks the marriage covenant completely and that would be a biblical reason today. Non-support, any type of abuse(emotional, physical, chemical) that makes life impossible, loss of conjugal rights are other reasons but there are many more. That’s why God uses the word ”ervah” because it can cover so many areas that can make life impossible, and it’s Greek equivalent is “porneia.” Unfortunately, some English translations translate “porneia” as “adultery” and it gives the wrong interpretation to what Yeshua is really saying. He is addressing some of the wrong interpretations of “ervah” done by the Pharisees, especially from the School of Hillel, who clashed with the Pharisees from the school of Shammai over this matter, and He clarifies God’s intention through Moses, which happened to be more consistent with how the school of Shammai interpreted it than the school of Hillel. Now, Paul was trained in the School of Hillel because his teacher Gamaliel, Hillel’s grandson. He had to change his view on divorce and you see it in 1Cor 7 where he is teaching the Corinthians about what to do in their domestic situations. We know he taught the Torah concepts because he tells them in 1 Cor 11.1-2 that he wanted them to “hold fast to the traditions “he taught them. The word for traditions in Greek is “paradosis” which means the Jewish traditions that were biblical, as found in the Scriptures, and the only scriptures that exixted at that time was the Old Testament, or “ Tanak” which is an acrynym fot Torah ( 5 bks of Moses), Nevi’im (prophets) and Ketuvim(writings). Now, these Corinthians were well versed in the pagan culture of Greece and Rome and were getting divorces for many of the same reasons the Jews were, only worse. In 1 Cor 7.10-11 he says that it is not his opinion “but the Lords” ( which means it’s found in the Scriptures-Deut 24.1-4, Exodus 21.10-11 for a start) that the wife should not leave her husband for trivial , unscriptural reasons , and if she has, she can’t remarry or else she needs to be reconciled to her husband. This is not referring to a wife who has biblical, legal grounds for a divorce but to one who just abandoned her husband for her own, selfish reasons not sanctioned by the Scriptures. This verse is taken out of context by those not understanding all of the scriptures. Remember, Paul is a trained rabbi who was an expert in Jewish hermeneutical interpretation and would have all the scriptures relating to divorce in mind when writing this. Remember, he said it wasn’t his opinion, but the Lord’s in v10. In verse 39 he gives another reason to remarry and that is the case of one spouse dies, and he was telling the Corinthians in that case you can also remarry. So, divorce and remarriage is permissible in the Scriptures in all cases where the marriage cannot go on due to some of the reasons already given, but it is not limited to only those mentioned. This should only be entered into with much prayer and sound biblical counsel that is founded on the principles God already has laid down in the Torah because that is what Yeshua and Paul used as the basis for their instruction in the verses you cited. I know this doesn’t even scratch the surface of this difficult subject, but I hope this will help you counsel your friend who may be struggling with a lot of guilt piled on her by people who misunderstand what God has said. She doesn’t need that kind of guilt because a divorce is difficult to deal with emotionally even when it is necessary. If I can help her further, tell her to contact me as soon as possible.

Q. In John 1, Jesus says he saw Nathanael “ under the fig tree.” What is the significance of this?

A. Being “under the fig tree” is a Hebrew idiom for peace, and more specifically the Messianic Kingdom. In John 1, Yeshua is looking for his disciples. They didn’t choose Him, His followers never do, it’s the Lord who finds them. He says to Nathanael that he is an Israelite “in whom there is no guile” which means he had no false estimation of himself, he was an honest man. And Nathanael asks Him “how do you know me?” or why do you say that. Yeshua answers and says in v 46 that “before Phillip called you (v45) when you were under the fig tree, I saw you. Nathanael knows the meaning of the idiom and immediately declares Yeshua a king by saying “you are the Son of God” which is a title for kings found in 1 Chr 28.5-7 where the Lord calls Solomon a “son to Me” and from that time on kings were called the “Son’s of God.” He then comes right out and tells us what he means by saying that by calling Yeshua the King of Israel. The term ”sitting under the fig tree” is an idiom for peace found in several scriptures Micah 4.4 says that in the Messianic Kingdom each person will sit under his fig tree, with nobody making them afraid and it will be a time for study, meditation and peace. If you are sitting under a tree you aren’t building walls to defend yourself so that’s why it carried the idea of peace. In 1Kings 4.25 it says that Judah and Israel lived in safety, every man under his vine and his fig tree during Solomon’s reign. You will also see this concept in Isa 36.16 where an Assyrian envoy tries to convince those in the city of Jerusalem to surrender and says that if they make peace then each person can eat of his vine and of his fig tree and drink from his own water cisterns and so on. Again, eating and sitting under the fig tree symbolized peace. Lastly, in Zech 3.10 it says that “In that day (another idiom for the Messianic Kingdom or when Messiah comes), declares the Lord of Hosts every one of you will invite his neighbor to sit under his vine and under his fig tree.” So, when Yeshua calls Nathanael a righteous man He also says He sees him the Messianic Kingdom by saying He saw him “under a fig tree.” It is also very probable that Nathanael was actually sitting under a fig tree. When Yeshua told him He saw him, Nathanael knew that there was something different about this Man and it is possible that he declared Yeshua King through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. It is also possible that Nathanael may have been meditating on Jacob’s Ladder found in Genesis 28 and that’s why Yeshua immediately goes into the imagery found there and ties Jacob’s Ladder to Himself.

Q. There are rumors going around on the Internet that Barack Obama could be the Antichrist. What is your view on this?

A. Right off, Mr. Obama is not the Antichrist, who I will refer to as the False Messiah which is closer to its meaning. Over the years many politicians have been accused of that including Prince Charles, King Juan Carlos of Spain, Henry Kissinger and many others. But, the subject of the False Messiah is very comprehensive in the Scriptures and it is a subject that has been talked about for several thousand years. Some of the Rabbi’s of the first century believed that he would be Jewish from the tribe of Dan. A good source to study this subject can be found in the Jewish encyclopedia under “False Messiah” and it is very well developed and actually has a lot to say on the subject. I will go into some of the Scriptures concerning him but some back-ground in Eschatology will have to be laid first. In Prophecy, some of the countries today will have an ancient counterpart. For instance, Europe will be symbolized by Egypt. Egypt was called the “iron furnace” in Deuteronomy and where Israel was held captive, and Europe was where Israel was held captive and the iron furnaces are well known to those who are familiar with the holocaust. Europe will also be known as
Kittim” in prophecy and we will get to that. Russia will be pictured by Assyria, the United States by the Land of Babylon, the Kings of the East by the army of Babylon. To develop this out takes many hours and in our congregation I take about a month every fall and teach nothing but prophecy, using the festivals, idioms, phrases found in Scripture to develop out Biblical eschatology. The false Messiah of course is an end-time eschatological character that must be understood. So, with that in mind let’s look at a few Scriptures to get an idea of who he is. Leviticus 24.10-16 gives a good picture. The son of an Israelite woman (Jewish) and an Egyptian man(European) struggles with a man of Israel (Messiah-Gen 3.15). He blasphemes the name of the Lord (Dan 7.8-11, 11.32, 2 Thes 2.4). His mother’s name is Shelomith which means “peaceful”, the daughter of Dibri which means “my word” from the tribe of Dan. He is eventually killed because of his blasphemy and so will the False Messiah (2 Thes 2.4-8). Daniel 9.26 describes the False Messiah as “ a prince from the people that will come” who we know will be the Romans, which is referring to Europe. There is a concept found in the prophets about a creature named Leviathan. The Jewish Encyclopedia also has a lot to say about this creature. Isaiah 27.1-2 describes what will happen to this creature in the day of the Lord, and he is described here as a “tannin” or sea monster who is destroyed. If you compare this with Ezekiel 29.3-7 and 32.2-8 you will see how this dragon is referred to as Pharaoh, king of Egypt, or Europe again. In Dan 11.30 there is a prophecy about Antiochus Epiphanes. He is the Greek king in the Chanukah story who made war with the Jewish people and forced them to stop observing the Torah. In v 30 it talks about ships from Kittim coming against him to help the Macabees. We know from history that Rome came to the aid of Israel and so we know Kittim means Rome, or Europe. The False Messiah will attempt to help Israel in the birth-pains but will eventually turn on her, just like Rome did. So again, the False Messiah will come out of Europe. In Ezekiel 21.25-27 there is a prophecy about a wicked prince of Israel whose day of judgment has come and his ruler-ship is ended. In the literal, the prophecy concerns Zedekiah but Zedekiah is also a picture of the False Messiah. But notice he is a “prince” and Dan 9 calls the False Messiah a “prince”. There is a small prophecy in Micah 2.4 where it says that God will give Israel over to the “apostate”. Now to be an apostate means he is away from the biblical faith. The False Messiah is described as the “lawless one” ( 2 Thes 2.1-12) and when you look up the word it means “no Torah” or “Torah-less”. The religion of Europe is apostate Christianity and we know from Revelation 12.17 that the False Messiah will make war on anyone who believes that Yeshua is the Messiah and keeps the commandments of God. So, he will be against Torah observance as most of Israel’s enemies have been. There is so much more that can be said about this but in conclusion the False Messiah will be Jewish, probably from the tribe of Dan and come out of Europe. It is very dangerous to accuse anyone living today of being the False Messiah and the Scriptures say that he won’t be identified until after the catching away of the believers on earth at Rosh ha Shanah anyway (2 Thes 2.1-3). There may be many reasons not to vote for Mr. Obama and that is up to the individual, but being the False Messiah shouldn’t be one of them.

Q. What is the purpose of fasting?

A. Fasting is a means of cleaning out the mind of earthly thoughts and desires in order to connect to God at a higher , spiritual level and to hear from the Lord. It is a time where we can get alone and ask the Lord “where am I with you” and to separate from the flesh. There are many examples of it in the Scriptures but I am going to limit it to several examples and then draw on the principles found there. The first one is found in Ezra 8.15-30. Ezra is going to lead some of the people back to the land after the Babylonian Captivity and he assembles some of the people to “humble” themselves before God and to pray for a safe journey for themselves, their children and their possessions. The term “humble” is a Hebraism for fasting and you will see it in Leviticus 23.29 in relation to Yom Kippur or the Day of Atonement and Paul also refers to Yom Kippur as “the Fast” in Acts 27.9. Ezra had been saying to their captors how God’s hand was upon the Jewish people and how He was going to protect them in their journey back to the land so he was embarrassed to ask the king for troops and horseman for additional protection because it would have made the Lord look insufficient, and so Ezra had a problem (Ezra 8.22). You see, they were bringing back gold and silver and the utensils that had been captured from the destruction of the Temple by the Babylonians and they were going to use it again once the Temple was rebuilt, so they were sitting ducks for thieves and robbers, who would immediately see they were traveling unescorted with a virtual treasure. So, in Ezra 8.23 he calls a fast so that God will give them some ideas on how they were to transport all this wealth back to the land. After 3 days Ezra gets a word from the Lord to divide up the treasure in 12 parts and entrusted it into the hand of some priests and Levites and they wouldn’t have all their eggs “in one basket” in case of an attack. He instructs them to watch and keep the Temple treasure until they arrive in Jerusalem and can give an accounting before the leading priests, Levites and family heads (v 29). So in this case they fasted in order to hear from God on what to do.
In Isaiah 58.1-12 the Lord admonishes the people about their fasting because it had become a mundane performance void of any deeper concerns concerning love, mercy, justice and kindness to others. The Lord was not taking notice of what they were doing because they were oppressing the poor, not supporting their families and pointing the finger at others and supporting false doctrines. He was telling them to stop neglecting the weightier commandments concerning the above things and to start correcting their attitudes. Then they would have the understanding they needed and then He would answer their prayers. In Zechariah 8.19 Israel had added 4 fasts during the year that God never ordained. The Jewish people still observe these today. These self-appointed days of fasting was not going to fix why Babylon came and destroyed the Temple in the first place. They needed stop mourning the destruction of a building ( the Temple)and find out why God allowed it in the first place, which was due to their callousness, sin, idolatry. They were trying to ingratiate themselves to God by their ritualistic fasting but had missed the point as to why the Babylonians were allowed to defeat them in the first place. This exact point is brought out in Ezekiel 20.1-49. They had been fasting on one of the self-appointed days mentioned in Zechariah 8 and inquired of the Lord and He tells them that they needed to understand why the Temple and the exile happened. In Ezekiel 24. 16-24 the people are told why the Temple was destroyed, and he tells them not to mourn over it but to examine themselves and to correct what happened, starting with their own hearts. Another aspect to fasting is seen in the sacrifices performed in the Temple. We read in Leviticus 3. 4,9 that the fat was not to be consumed but burned on the Altar. Now fat has several meanings. First, the fat symbolizes that which is too rich to consume and it is for God alone. We cannot fully understand God’s ways and we need to trust Him. We can “digest” the rich things of God (the fat) in small amounts but most of it is beyond our human comprehension. Secondly, fat is symbolic of pride, prosperity and folly (Psa 17.10; Psa 119.70, Psa 37.20)and it can block our “spiritual arteries” rendering the mind dull, insensitive and oblivious to spiritual truth. The life is in the blood and eating too much fat can cause heart disease, and the same thing happens spiritually. Earthly prosperity can often be the prelude to destruction in much the same way a calf or sheep is fattened before it is slaughtered. By fasting, we burn not only the natural fat in our bodies but it can also be seen as offering the fat on the Altar and to getting rid of the “spiritual fat” that may have been accumulating around our hearts causing is to be dull and insensitive to the things of God. There is so much more that can be said about fasting and how it should be done but I hope this gives you some idea of how it should be done and the correct attitude we should have while doing it. It is certainly ordained of God ( Matt 6.16-19) and should never be done unless we are prompted by the Holy Spirit to do it (Matt 4.1-2) and it should be done in order to hear from God about something or when we don’t know what to do. It can be a blessing to us and others when it is done with the proper understanding and attitude and not turned into some mundane, ritualistic act void of any real spiritual reality.

Q. What is the verse that indicates that God has always known us, even before we were born. Where is it located in the Bible?

A. There are many verses that indicate that the Lord has known us before we were born and I’ll deal with a few right now. God is outside of time, and He is not limited in what He does or knows like we are. That is the whole concept behind the prophecies in the Bible. He knows the players and the situations that He will use to ultimately bring about His desired purposes. For instance, Pharaoh was raised up for the very purposes he played out in the Exodus. Paul even refers to this in Romans 9.17. In Isaiah 45.1 he actually names a Persian King named Cyrus many years before he was even born and tells what he will do and that the Lord was the one who was going to raise him up and bring it about. Daniel 8.5-8 is a prophecy about Alexander the Great and what would happen to him and it continues to describe world history and specific kings that would come and what they would do in relation the people of Israel. In Jeremiah 1. 5 it says that God knew Jeremiah before he was formed in the womb. In Psalms 139 the doctrines on omniscience and omnipresence of God are described. In v 16 it says that God’s eyes saw the writer’s “unformed substance” wrote down in a scroll all the days ordained to him when “yet there were none.” In Ephesians 1.4 it says that God chose us in Him (those who would believe) before the foundation of the world, and compare this with Roman 8.29-30 and you will see that everything was “set” before we ever drew our first breath. There are many verses that teach us that God knew us and planned out our lives before we were ever born and there is no doubt about that. I could mention Judas, who was specifically raised up to do what he did, Isaac who was predicted to be born a year ahead of time and even given the name he was to be called, Jacob and Esau, John the Baptist was also named and prophesied about before he was born, and the greatest example of this is Yeshua Himself. So, God knew us before the world was even created and no human being is an accident but has a specific role in God’s plan.