A favorite human

Thank goodness that’s over. I had to fire a resident assistant at the very end of November, which meant I got to take over her shift of 4:30-10 p.m. on Wednesdays throughout this month because I’d already made the schedule for assignments.

Fortunately, I was able to listen to Shorewood over the internet this evening and, despite the dozen or so interruptions from residents and RAs, I got in some good meat (not to mention material for my writings).

This has been a long day for me. I got up early to make our second food pickup of the month from the Greater Chicago Food Depository. The highlight was there was NO traffic on Lake Shore Drive and Lake Michigan’s waves were kicking up pretty good from my vantage point in our super-long Ford Econoline handicap van. (The lowlight was finding out after my late-late workday that my internet service was suspended due to non-payment even though I was led to believe I successfully transferred to an automated payment service through my credit card!)

I’ve always loved this week between Christmas and New Year’s, where half the population abandons the city and the other half isn’t really working. The one regret is I didn’t get to take advantage of it for a smooth, no-hassle drive out to church tonight!
Anyway, here’s an outtake from tonight’s message:

“Gideon’s one of my favorite guys in the Bible because he’s just so human. I read through the whole Bible at least twice a year and in my personal reading just this past week one of the books I read was the Book of Judges.

“It’s hard to beat Gideon. I always think, ‘Lord, I’m glad you put that guy in the Bible because he demonstrates how God has dealt with folks like us before!' Sometime you think nobody’s ever messed up like you’ve messed up or been as dumb as you’ve been, that kind of stuff, or been as proud or self-righteous as you are.

“You just look at Gideon and you get it all. I’m just amazed by the guy. When you come to Judges 9 Gideon’s life is over. He lived quite a life. In Chapter 7 he delivers Israel with the little band of 300 and then he lives a prosperous life. If you look at Judges 8, it says, ‘[29] And Jerubbaal the son of Joash went and dwelt in his own house.
[30] And Gideon had threescore and ten sons of his body begotten: for he had many wives.
[31] And his concubine that was in Shechem, she also bare him a son, whose name he called Abimelech.’

“That dude had 70 kids! He had to have had a lot of wives to have had that many kids. I mean, you go figure.

“Gideon didn’t end so well. When he made an ephod, an ephod is a part of the garment of a priest. It’s like the robe the priest wears. Gideon wasn’t a priest, though. One of the great sins in the Old Testament that you’ll see great men (Saul, for example) do they try to usurp the priesthood. They try to take the office of a priest. Sometime they’re prophets, sometime they’re kings, there’s only one person outside the Lord Jesus Christ that met all three offices in one person and that’s King David.

“Samuel, for example, was a prophet. He also functioned as a priest, offering sacrifices. But he wasn’t a king. Saul was a king who tried to usurp the priest office and lost his kingdom because of it.

“Getting between God and man, Gideon was a judge. He wasn’t designed to be a priest. But what he does is he gets into a spiritual declension and he begins to spiritually fail and he adopts apostasy. And you get to verse 31, he has his favorite son; Abimelech is the name of a heathen king.

“You know, you sort of name your kids after your heroes. Why would Gideon name his boy after a pagan king? You scratch your head at that; he’s not ending well."

(To be continued . . . )

Say hi to Louie for me Rita

Our first Christmas without my sister has been extra special. The best part was having my niece and brother-in-law present my mom with a Christmas card my sister had intended to put in the mail for her (with extra stamps on it and everything) but must have forgotten because it was found in cleaning out her stuff shortly after her death last April.

She had marked on the top of the inside of the gold-embossed card with roses all over it: “XMAS 2010.” Written on it was, “To Mommy, Love from the bottom of my (she drew a heart on it as she was famous for doing—going back to childhood) to you Always. Thankful for YOU! God Bless You ALWAYS. Rita (with another heart drawn as an extension to the “a” at the end of her name).

The card itself read, in part, “For a wonderful mother. Life has been so wonderful Because of all you’ve done, And of all the gifts you’ve given, Love has been the greatest one. At Christmas And Always, You’re Loved So Much.”

I didn’t even know about this strangely found greetings card (from the card company Ambassador, of all things!) until I caught my mom exiting the living room (where we were all unwrapping presents) with tears in her eyes. She passed me the card and then I was the one tearing up. My brother was next.

It was a wonderful reminder of Rita, who was having the struggle of her life at this holiday time last year, trying her hardest to cope with a multitude of serious ills while simultaneously attending hearings, etc., in her suit against former employer Wal-Mart--a case that is still moving forward and will hopefully one day give some sense of retribution (if that’s even the right word) to our family.

The great gift that we all have is knowing she is home now with the Lord, safe and secure in His loving arms. She loved that very famous painting of an image of a long-haired Jesus Christ in a robe, hugging someone.

My gift from my mom was an iPod Nano for downloading music. It is quite the shift from my Sony Walkman!!! Yes, I’m someone who’s still tugging along a Walkman for jogging, walking, listening to sermons in my car, etc.

The first download I made was, “Bridge over Troubled Water,” from my favorite group from childhood—Simon and Garfunkel. Then, without much thought, I downloaded a favorite old piece—“I’m Your Captain/I’m Getting closer to My Home,” by Grand Funk Railroad. The third quick $1.29 download was, “Only the Beginning,” from “The Best of Chicago” album. I can already see how easily addictive (and expensive) this all is!

After hearing a favorite song this morning watching Shorewood online, “Fairest Lord Jesus,” I’ve already started investigating the iTune store’s old hymn offerings. I know it’s gonna be hard to even think of using my Walkman after this MAJOR technological advancement for me!!!

Well, just wanted to shout out a “Merry Christmas!” and give a big thumbs-up report on how mine is going!

Hid with Him

Paul writes in Phil. 4:22, “All the saints salute you, chiefly they that are of Caesar's household.” In chapter 1:13 he’s already told them, “So that my bonds in Christ are manifest in all the palace, and in all other places; all the palaces.”

Jordan says, “It’s fascinating that the gospel was making inroads in Rome all the way to the palaces of Caesar. Paul’s in prison. One of the greatest things in ministry, I thankfully realized many years ago, is the Body of Christ doesn’t belong to me. The Body of Christ belongs to the Lord Jesus Christ and it’s His responsibility, task and job to take care of it.

“Those three words—in Christ Jesus and variations thereof. In Christ, in Him. Paul uses over 130 times that phrase in his 13 little epistles. That is a dominant thinking of the Apostle Paul because in Paul’s mind, being in Christ Jesus is the essence of what Christianity is about. It’s the essence of the grace of God. It’s the essence of who we are and it’s what Philippians is about doing. Christ is our life, our mind, our goal, our strength. He’s the sum total; He’s the excellency of all that we have.

“In Christ--You got to the get the idea. To be in something. The idea is to be in the sphere of something. I like to say you’re encapsulized. You see if you were in a circle that would be different. When you’re in capsule you’re surrounded with protection and then if a brick fell what would happen? It would bounce off. You’re completely surrounded. That’s what it means to be in Christ.

Paul says in Colossians 3:3, “For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God.”

Jordan says, “I used to struggle with this verse, wondering, ‘What does it mean?’ Then it dawned on me it means exactly what it says. What a thought! If I’m standing in circle I’m not hid and you can see me! It’s just on one plane. I’m totally submerged inside of God with Christ! You know what that is? That’s security. That means I’m safe and secure inside of Him from any harm; any foes on the outside. And I’m completely supplied by everything that’s in the capsule.”

Two-step processes

Deut. 16:16 says, “Three times in a year shall all thy males appear before the LORD thy God in the place which he shall choose; in the feast of unleavened bread, and in the feast of weeks, and in the feast of tabernacles: and they shall not appear before the LORD empty:”

Jordan explains, “When you go before the Lord those three times wherever you live, wherever a Jew was, wherever he lived, in all the land mass of Israel or if he lived in a foreign country, three times a year he was to go to Jerusalem. One of the things they had to go there for was to keep their loyalty toward the place where God put His name. That’s the way they were to finance that holy day.

“When you say ‘holiday,’ what you’ve done is taken the word holy day and made one word out of it. So what they did three times a year was—Passover, Pentecost and Tabernacles. They financed a trip; a festival or a holiday to Jerusalem with that second tithe.

“Think about if I told you that you had to tithe TWO tithes. Give God one and you got to keep the other to go on vacation--you probably wouldn’t mind tithing so much, would you? They took a vacation with an eternal purpose. They went to Jerusalem and worshipped, and if they couldn’t take it with them because it was too far, they could turn it into money.

"When they go to Jerusalem, that’s what the money changers were there for (that Jesus ran out of the temple). People come in there with the money, then they were buying the sacrifice animals and so forth when they got there.

*****

“The Lord Jesus Christ talked about hell a lot, but Paul never uses the term hell. And people say, 'Paul never used the term hell; he must not have believed in it.' And I think, 'Well what do you think verse 9 is talking about?!'

“If you want to argue and say, ‘Well, that is that ultimate end out there—the lake of fire—then that’s not technically a reference to hell,’ but death and hell are cast into the lake of fire. Hell is the place where the souls of lost people are held in prison as it were, until the Great White Throne Judgment.

“And I’ve tried to use the illustration to you already about lost people. The prognosis is ‘he that believes not is condemned already’ (John 3:18). You don’t need to stand before God to find out whether you’re lost or not.

“Hell is like the jail in which the condemned are held; you’re already guilty but you haven’t been sentenced yet. The Great White Throne Judgment
is the sentencing and after it death and hell are going to be cast into the lake of fire. That’s the Big House! So when we talk about hell, technically you’re talking about that confinement place up until the great white throne judgment. And then after that it’s the lake of fire. That’s that ultimate end.

“What Paul does talk about is everlasting destruction. He talks about the wrath of God. Ephesians 2:3.

“Ephesians 5:6. So why does the wrath of God fall on lost people? He says because of these sinful activities that people participate in they earn the wrath of God. Well, he didn’t say hell, but hell’s just the place where the wrath of God is executed.

“The idea that Paul didn’t believe in eternal judgment simply because he didn’t use the term that describes a temporary place where that wrath and judgment is executed doesn’t mean he doesn’t believe in eternal judgment.

“Romans 2:3. That’s what you get when you deal with God based on your own works. Now where does that take place? When Jesus Christ comes back ‘in flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God’ and destroys them with everlasting destruction that separates them eternally from God.

“Romans 5:9. That’s a comforting verse when you think about the everlasting destruction that the wages of sin brings about.

“People say, ‘Well, when he talks there about everlasting destruction, that word ‘everlasting’ doesn’t mean that it lasts forever. You say, ‘Well, where do you get that?’

“The way people do that is they go to the Greek word ‘eon’ and the Greek term is ‘eon of the eons and age of the age.’ And the ages of the ages. And then they say, ‘See, when he describes eternity as the age of the ages, well, sooner or later, the ages are going to come to an end.’

“No matter how many there are, it’s a finite idea and they use the Greek terms like that, and what happens when people start doing that is what you find out is people don’t know enough about the Greek language to tell you what the Greek words mean, and you don’t know enough about it to find out about it either, so you wind up everybody being confused and led into error.

“Now when he says they’re going to be punished with everlasting destruction, come with me one verse that will settle the thing. Luke 1:33.

“Talking about the Lord Jesus Christ, the angel’s appeared to Mary and told her she’s going to be the mother of the humanity of Christ and he says to her in verse 32.

“What does forever mean? It means no end. Well in the verse eons of eons means ‘no end!’ Eph. 3:21. How long do all ages last? World without end. When he said all ages, he’s not talking about all of them until they end. He’s talking about the fact they’re not going to end. It’s going to be world without end.

“If you come back to Isaiah 45 it’s a concept that comes out of the Hebrew bible. Isaiah 45:17. So how long is everlasting? It’s without end. Isaiah 23, just in case you have a problem with that word ‘world,’ there’s more than one way that term world can be used.

“We can talk about the world and sometimes be talking about the earth, but most of the time we’re not. We’re talking about the activity of life on the earth during a period of time, which would be an age.

“You talk about the world of sports. Is there a planet called sports? No, you know that. The world of politics, economics, we’re talking about the cosmos, the system of sports. The system of economics.

“Isaiah 23:17. There the term world is obviously not a reference to the planet. It’s a reference to something taking place on the planet. The planet is the face of the earth. So when you see the word ‘world’ in your Bible, don’t just immediately assume it’s talking about the planet. It can be also be talking about the world on the face of the planet. In other words, the organization of the kingdoms of the world; the organized affairs of the governmental systems that are on the earth.

“So when he talks about world without end, being without end is ‘it doesn’t ever stop.’ There will always be the organized universe and it’s going to last forever. And the ‘without end’ the ‘eon of the eon,’ the forever means it never stops. It means it’s going to go on forever; it’s going to be an everlasting salvation.

“Another way people try to take eternal and say that it’s not forever is to say that when you die ‘the everlasting destruction’ is that they don’t exist anymore.

“In Matthew 25:41, Jesus is talking about people who are judged out of the tribulation. How long does that fire last? Forever because it’s everlasting! It’s not going to be annihilation. Verse 46: annihilation means the punishment is over. It’s gone because you’re gone.

*****

“With the skins God covered Adam and Eve with the clothing. There’s a two-step process. One, God went and sacrificed the animal. Then He came to Adam and Eve and said, ‘Here’s the clothing.’ Adam and Eve had to willingly accept the clothing and put it on. God provided it.

“Until He skinned it and brought it, there was no provision for Adam to have his nakedness covered. But had Adam not accepted the clothing, he’d have still stood naked with the clothing at his feet.

"It would have been like he told Cain, ‘Sin lies at the door. The answer’s right there but you got to put it on.’ So there’s really a two-step process there in the first example of redemption. There’s the shedding of blood. God did that but then they had to accept the covering and put it on.”

Undiminished deity

I guess I should be happy and let it go. I got a call a half-hour ago from a journalist friend who told me I was on Page 4 of the front section of the Sunday “Chicago Tribune.” I looked at the piece online a few minutes ago and was dismayed to see I came off, in my opinion, as quite inadequate.

*****

The Spirit’s going to come; the New Covenant is going to be inaugurated and Christ says, in essence, "the Father’s going to be in you and you’re going to be in me and I’m going to be in you and we’re going to be one!"

Jordan explains it: “He’s completely identified with the Believing remnant. I John says, ‘As he is so are we in the world.’ You see right here in the heart of a passage (John 14) where He’s doing exactly what Isaiah does. The servant back there is Israel with her Messiah, who is the REAL servant! And Israel is sharing His status because in Him they have His identity. In 14:28, He’s magnifying the one whose will He’s come to do and His owning His place as the servant; ‘yea, the suffering servant of the Lord.’

“It’s the silliest thing in the world to think you’re denying the deity of Christ when you’re recognizing Him as the man Christ Jesus. Because it’s just as damning to deny to His full and authentic humanity as it is to deny His true and undiminished deity.

“You ask, ‘But how can true and undiminished deity live as real authentic humanity?’ Well, they can’t in the absolute. So God, the undiminished and true deity, willingly chooses not to make His reputation as God an issue but to submit Himself to the will of His Father and take on our limitations of humanity. 5:8. He never ceases to be a son. Somebody says, ‘Well, when Jesus became man, did He cease to be God?’ How could that happen?!’ How could you quit being God if you’re God? Can you quit being a human?

“Jesus didn’t quit being who He was; He just became somebody who He wasn’t previously. He didn’t quit being God. He became man. ‘And being made perfect he became the author of eternal salvation unto all them who obey him.’ Now that’s an interesting verse.

“He learned obedience. How can God learn obedience? God doesn’t. Who learns it? The man Christ Jesus. You see He was more than God; He took on your humanity, but because He was God He voluntarily limited the exercise of His status and capacity as God so that He could enter into the status and capacity of your human limitations. He demonstrated Himself in His earthly ministry to be God. He raised the dead. He forgave sin. Only God can do that but He didn’t do it independently on His own. He did it in response to the will of His Father.

“Christ submits His activity to the instructions and plan of His Father, and in so doing demonstrates how we can experience God living in us because when Paul says, ‘Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus,’ He wasn’t telling us to go back and follow the Jewish program Jesus is teaching back in Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. He’s saying, ‘You see how He lived in His humanity; that’s how He wants to live in your humanity.’ You and I are to live in complete dependency on the will of our Father. Where right division comes in is to figure out what that will is, but the issue is the same.

“When He says, ‘My father is greater than I,’ He’s not talking in any way about the nature of the godhead. He’s talking about the role that He as the servant has come to play. And He said, ‘If you have been listening, I’m being submissive to the plan of the Father and that plan goes all the way back to Genesis 1.’

“John 14:29 . . . I love that! Jesus Christ didn’t stand around blowing His own horn, running around saying, ‘I’m God; woo, look at me!’ All He did to prove who He was was prophecy ahead of time about the things that are going to happen in the face of eye witnesses and let them see it happen. He demonstrated Himself over and over again, even here at the very last moment of His life with His apostles, to be that prophet like unto Moses; to be the one who has come to be God’s spokesman.

“John 13:19. He told them at the beginning of the conversation. What did He want them to believe? That He’s the Messiah. That He’s that divinely appointed, accredited, promised qualified Savior.

*****

“In the instructions given to the nation Israel, the tithe is an integral part of the life of that nation. And there are three basic tithes that an Israeli was to give. There were a few other taxes they had and then they gave voluntary gifts. A tithe is compulsory. You remember Malachi 3 he says, ‘Will a man rob God? And they said wherewith have we robbed thee?’ And he says, in tithes and offerings.

“The tithe belonged to the Lord and when they didn’t give it to Him they
were robbing Him. Well that comes out of Leviticus 27:30.

“In Numbers 18 he tells them to tithe of the seed of the land (the agriculture, the vegetable kingdom), of the oil (vegetable kingdom) and of the animal kingdom (their flocks) and then salt (the mineral kingdom). All of creation Israel was to tithe back to the Lord what they got out of it. And they were to give a tenth of their gross production. It was the first ten percent of the gross income they had from any source.

“Numbers 18:21. What happens is all 12 tribes of Israel, 10 percent of the gross income they have of each family is to be taken and given to the Levites to support the levitical tribe. Why? Reason is the Levites don’t get an inheritance in the land. Could they grow a crop or have a business? No. they were chosen out to work in the temple, to be the priests, to be God’s representatives. They are the priesthood in Israel.

“Israel was a theocracy with God as their king and He ran the nation
through His word and through the priests. That’s why you have this royal nation with a royal priesthood. That’s why Jesus is a priest on the throne. Those two offices were combined together and the government of the nation Israel worked itself out through the tribe of Levi. So the tithe was an income tax to support the government of the nation.

“By the way, remember in Leviticus 27 where he talks about that ‘fifth part added’? A fifth part is 20 percent. If the Levites got 10 percent of 12 tribes how much of the gross national product did they get? What’s ten times 12? They got 120 percent. That was their reward for the sacrifice they were making; the service they were rendering as the nation and the priesthood.

“By the way, when they would bring a sacrifice—produce, animals—some of it was dedicated to the Lord in the burnt offering. But the rest of it the priest got that too. So the storehouse is sort of like the temple treasury where they kept the goods.

“They were carrying on the same thing Abraham did back there. What did Abraham do with Melchizedek? He was paying a tribute to the king and royal priest. By the way, where was the temple and the tabernacle? In Jerusalem. He tells them over and over that you bring you offerings to the door of the tabernacle in the place that I’ll tell you. And after the wilderness wanderings He brought it over and He said, ‘I’ve chosen Jerusalem to be the place where I’m going to put my name.’ And so they would bring it there.

“Now, there were two other tithes. Deut. 14:22. Household. This is a tithe you’re going to keep for yourself and you’re going to eat. You’re going to consume it. Where are you going to eat it? In Jerusalem.”

Delighting in 'git-er done'

The little pot of manna put in the ark represented God’s provisions in preserving the nation Israel. They’d broken the law but God brings life back to them (the budding of the rod) and gives them the provisions of ‘the bread of life.’

The manna is a testimony to God’s preservation of them.
Exodus 16: 33 says, "And Moses said unto Aaron, Take a pot, and put an omer full of manna therein, and lay it up before the LORD, to be kept for your generations." Verse 36 goes on to explain, "Now an omer is the tenth part of an ephah."

Jordan says, “They put a tithe of the manna into the ark. That tenth part, or tithe, had a connection with God preserving that holy seed through the wilderness and into the Promised Land. It’s connected with God preserving Israel through the tribulation into her kingdom.”

*****

John 14: 30 says, “Hereafter I will not talk much with you: for the prince of this world cometh, and hath nothing in me.
[31] But that the world may know that I love the Father; and as the Father gave me commandment, even so I do. Arise, let us go hence...

Jordan explains, "I’m gonna be gone. He knows He’s going to die the next day, then be raised up and spend only 40 days with them before going away but He’s going to send the Holy Spirit. He’s in essence turning them over to the ministry of the Holy Spirit. And He says, ‘Peace I leave with you. My peace I give unto you.’

“That expression ‘my peace.’ Paul uses a wonderful phrase: ‘The peace of God,’ and that’s what that verse is talking about. Peace is that relaxed mental attitude of faith. It’s that inner-man tranquility that results from a total dependence on the will and the Word of the Father. That’s exactly what Christ is doing here.

“Watch how it happens. Verse 28: ‘Ye have heard how I said unto you, I go away, and come again unto you. If ye loved me, ye would rejoice, because I said, I go unto the Father: for my Father is greater than I.’

“So that everybody understands that I’m totally committed to doing what the Father says to do. Because I love him. He already told them, ‘If you love me keep my commandments.’ I’m living in complete total dependence on the will of my Father, is what He’s saying. Paul has a great phrase for that—he calls it ‘the faith of Christ.’

“He entered into a plan and an agreement with His Father that that’s what He would do and said, ‘Now my peace I leave you.’ He’s completely at peace. He has complete inner tranquility even though He knows the agony He’s going to face.

"In fact, when He says in verse 30 and then 31, He’s saying in the vernacular of our day, ‘Let’s git-er done . . . Let’s get on with it! The Adversary the prince of this world has come to fulfill the conflict of Gen 3:15 where the seed of the woman and the seed of Satan will be in personal hand-to-hand combat. That day has arrived, so let’s go!’

“Because He’s got nothing . . . there’s ‘no weakness in me at all. I’m ready to go.’

“He knows about what the Scripture says is going to happen to Him and yet He doesn’t hold back. In Hebrews 12 He says, ‘Who for the joy that was set before him he endured the cross, despising the shame.’ He had in His mind an understanding of what God had promised Him and believed it and trusted it confidently. There’s no rebellion, no hesitation; He has that complete inner tranquility.

“When Paul talks in Philippians 4:7 about the ‘peace of God,’ that’s the peace that BELONGS to God. In Romans 5, he talks about ‘being justified by faith we have peace WITH God.’ That’s us and God; there’s not an argument between us anymore. God is no longer against me. There’s a cessation of hostility. No cause for God to be angry with me anymore.

“But the peace OF God is something different than that. That’s the peace that God Himself has. God is at peace with His own will. He’s at peace with His own plans. He’s at peace with His own word. And God’s peace; that total tranquility and inner calmness over what He’s doing, He takes that and gives it to me when I trust Him. And I can live, and Jesus lived, in complete dependence on His Father’s will and that gave Him that inner man tranquility that results from that total dependence.

“By the way, when he talks about the peace WITH God and the peace OF God, Melchizedek was the king of righteousness and the king of peace. Righteousness is first, peace is second. Because peace can only be based on righteousness; things have to righteously be dealt with. So you have peace with God where the righteousness of God is satisfied; then you can have the peace OF God.

“James 3:17 tells Israel, ‘But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be intreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy.’ First you have the righteousness, then you have the peace.

“Isaiah 32:15 (‘Until the spirit be poured upon us from on high, and the wilderness be a fruitful field, and the fruitful field be counted for a forest’) talks about the work of righteousness is peace. Righteousness has to do with being right. God’s word is right and I’m in relationship with it and the peace comes out of His righteousness.

“Verse 27 is a great illustration of the peace of God. Jesus Christ is God in human flesh. Here’s God living in our humanity and He has complete and total peace—inner tranquility, inner calmness, a relaxed mental attitude in his heart that results in that faith, that total dependence on the Word of His Father.

Verse 28. Ye have heard, and By the way, that’s how you don’t let your heart be troubled. You know, most trouble comes from fear. There are really two fundamental emotions that we deal with in all of life—one is love (drawing us toward things) and one is fear (pushing us away).

“If you take a list, for example, I Timothy 3 where Paul talks about if a man desires the office of a bishop and he gives you a long list of characteristics that this what a mature godly saint’s life would look like. When he does that, he identifies for a man a lot of the issues you’re going to have to deal with and have straight in your life.

“I took those things one time and listed them out and began to try to put them into categories and you know more things in that list in I Timothy 3 about what a man has to face and deal with to become a mature godly Christian man, the one category that had more things under it than any other was the issue of anger!

“Kind of shocked me. I studied that 2-3 times to see if I got it right. Men especially have to deal with the issue of anger and the reason for that I suppose is only by pride comes contention. And men have that issue.

“But when you study anger what you discover is almost always anger is a
disguise for fear. Because you get angry and when you get down to the bottom of where did the anger come from, it’s because you’re afraid of something either to lose or going to happen. Fear is a debilitating thing.

“In this context, the fear of men kept people from trusting and believing even when they saw the truth of God’s word by seeing the Messiah in their midst.

“ Jesus said, ‘Let not your heart be troubled.’ What does your heart do? With a heart man believes. ‘Neither be afraid.’ Without having that turmoil down inside just have the ability to, ‘Ahhh, let it hang out. Relax inside. Relax in the truth of God’s Word about who Jesus Christ is and what He’s accomplished.

“Why should you trust it? Look at me; I’m trusting it. Verse 28. You heard it. You heard me tell you. You know why you ought to have your heart trust me and not be afraid? Because you’ve heard my word. The path to peace is dependence on God’s Word. It’s to trust in what God has said to you. ‘If you love me you would rejoice because I said I go to my Father. Now why is He going to go to the Father?

“He’s going away to receive the kingdom. Remember the parallel in Luke 19? The passage in Daniel 7 where the son of man comes before the ancient of days to receive the kingdom and the power and the dominion? He goes there to receive the kingdom and to return.

“Philippians 2:5 says, ‘Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ
Jesus.’ This is a truth that Paul followers should be very clear about and should rejoice in. Paul goes on, ‘Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God:
[7] But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men:
[8] And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.’

“He made himself of no reputation. Who did that to Him? He did it to Himself. Voluntarily He took up a position and took upon him the form of a servant. Though He’s equal with the Father He chooses to function in relationship to the Father as a servant. Did He have to? No. He willingly chose to.

“The next verse says, ‘He humbled Himself and became obedient.’ What does a servant do? He does what his master, his lord, tells him to do. So when Jesus Christ says ‘the Father is great than I’ it’s in relationship to Him coming as a servant.

“What He’s doing is owning His place as a servant. Verse 31: ‘I’m going to go do the commandments of my father’ and he’s magnifying the one who sent Him: ‘I’m doing the will of my Father.’

“Now that Jehovah was going to send a son to be a servant is in Isaiah 42:1, which looks forward to the Messiah coming: ‘Behold my servant, whom I uphold; mine elect, in whom my soul delighteth; I have put my spirit upon him: he shall bring forth judgment to the Gentiles.’

“There’s God the Father describing the coming Messiah. He said it there at the baptism: ‘This is my beloved Son in whom I am well-pleased.’ I’ve put my Spirit upon Him. That’s how John is told in John 1: ‘You’ll know who He is because you’ll see the Spirit descending on Him. He’ll come and fulfill that passage.’

“He’s going to enable the nation Israel to be exactly the channel of blessing God chose them to be. A blessing to the nations. Verse 6: ‘I Lord have called thee in righteousness and will hold thine hand and keep thee and give thee for a covenant of people.’

“You know where Israel’s going to get her covenant? It’s going to be in Christ. That’s why in John 15 He’s going to say, ‘I am the vine.’ It’s only Israel in Christ. He’s going to make the covenant that allows them to be who God has chosen them to be; enables them to be that. He’s the servant.”

'Come on in!'

John 14:21-22 says, “ He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him. Judas saith unto him, not Iscariot, Lord, how is it that thou wilt manifest thyself unto us, and not unto the world?”

Jordan explains, “The last thing there about manifesting myself to him. How is he going to do that? He’s going to go away. You remember Thomas said, ‘If I can’t put my finger in his hands in his side I’m not going to believe.’ So what did Jesus do? He stood in front on him and said, ‘Okay, Tom, touch me. Here, put your hand in.’

“But there’s going to come a time when Jesus is going to go away and He won’t be there to do that. He’s not going to appear to them in visions. But His Spirit is going to be there and the Spirit is going to reveal Christ to them; He’s going to be (verse 17) the Spirit of truth. And it’s going to be through the ministry of the Holy Spirit that He’s going to communicate some words to them that will reveal some things that He has for them that He hasn’t yet been able to say to them.

*****

“You can see from verse 22 that Judas isn’t getting what He’s saying. Don’t be surprised, though, because we’ve already seen some other guys in this chapter who weren’t quite getting it! And Christ is giving them some information now that, later on, they will get. At this point, He’s just putting it on the record for them here so that later on, if you look down at verse 26, ‘But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you.’

“They’re later on going to be able to remember back to these things and that He did say it to them and then they’ll have that in their understanding. So Judas is asking Him the obvious question. What Judas missed is there in verse 21: ‘He it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him.’

“But He’s not going to manifest Himself to the world and He’s already told them that in the verse before that so Judas is saying, ‘Lord, how is it you’re going to manifest yourself to us and not the world? Why aren’t you going to manifest yourself to the world and you’re going to do it just to us?’

“What Judas is missing here is the fact Christ is making a distinction. There’s a division going on. There’s a separation. It’s for those ‘born of God.’ How do you get ‘born of God?’ Chapter 3 says you’re born of the Spirit.’ So the Spirit’s going to come. There’s some people in Israel born of the Spirit and they’re going to be different from other people who aren’t born of the Spirit and there’s a distinction there.

*****

“It’s interesting that there’s more than one apostle named Judas. There’s Judas Iscariot (which means a ‘man of Carioth’—that is he’s someone who came from the southern kingdom) but the other Judas (Luke 6:16) is the brother of James.

“Now if you contract the name Judas down, what do you think it would sound like? Jude. Jude 1 says, ‘Jude, the servant of Jesus Christ, and brother of James, to them that are sanctified by God the Father, and preserved in Jesus Christ, and called.’ Judas, the brother of James, is the one who wrote the Book of Jude. So again, not every book in the New Testament is written by an apostle. For example, Luke was not an apostle. But most of them are.

“Judas the apostle missed the point that there’s got to be a separation: ‘But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name.’

“And I’ve said to you all the way through the Book of John, the issue in the Book of John is He gave power to become. The focus is on God communicating to the believing remnant in Israel the spiritual qualifications to be His people. It takes more than just the physical to be related to God. Israel had that. They were His chosen nation in the earth as no other nation could be.

“But it wasn’t enough to physically be a descendant of God’s man, Abraham, because he was also a descendant of Adam. With Adam there came a spiritual problem of alienation from God. With Abraham the Gentiles were alienated from God and one nation kept relationships, but that nation still had a spiritual problem and needed to be spiritually qualified.

“So that spiritual issue of having the spiritual capacity and power to become the sons of God is what the book of John focuses on in particular.

“Jesus said in verse 23, ‘If a man love me he will keep my words.’ Commandments are instructions given by words. By communicating in talk. ‘If any man love me he will keep my words and my Father will love him. And we will come unto him and make our abode with him.’ They’re saying, ‘We’re going to come and have fellowship with him and we’re going to abide with him.’ Someone who makes their abode with you—that’s someone you welcome into your home!"

*****

“There’s an illustration of that in Revelation 3. I use this because this verse is so often misused. The Lord Jesus Christ sends messages to these seven churches listed. The last church is the church of Laodicea. Each one of these churches represents a special problem that the believing remnant in Israel will face in ‘the last days.’ Not just the problem--the solution to the problem is given.

“Rev. 3:20 says, ‘Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me.’ James said the Judge is at the door. He’s coming. He’s standing at the door and knocking. He wants to come in.

“There’s a famous painting of this verse with Jesus Christ standing at the door of a cottage. Now the painting is by one of the Renaissance Italian painters where you have a blond-haired, blue-eyed Jesus standing in front of you. The painting is the artist’s rendition and it’s not very true, but there’s a significant thing about the painting.

“If you look at the door, you’ll see there’s no door handle on the outside. The door has to be opened from the inside. And there’s a great truth in that. Because the way Jesus comes in is when the inhabitants open the door. And that’s what’s going on here.

“ ‘Behold I stand at the door and knock. If any man hear my voice AND open the door.’ He doesn’t barge in, snatch the door off the hinges and stomp in. He has to be invited in. It has to be opened.

“ ‘I will come into him and will sup with him and he with me.’ Now when He comes in, and then He sups with him, you see how He says, ‘I will come into him’? He just told them that in John 14: ‘I go away and yet I will come again. And when I come, I’m going to come and receive you unto myself. And when I come I will sup with you.’

“That word ‘sup’ is shorthand for the word ‘supper.’ Luke talks about how after they supped, He took the cup. The idea is, ‘I’ll come in and when I come in, I’m not just going to sit there; we’re going to have a meal! I’m going to fellowship with you. I’m going to enter into a fellowship ‘and he with me.’ We’re going to enter into a mutual fellowship!’

*****

“ ‘To him that overcome my throne his throne.’ Jesus goes away, sits at the Father’s right hand until His enemies are made His foot stool, then He comes back, sets up His kingdom, ‘sit on His throne with all the holy angels with Him (Matthew 25:31) and shall sit upon the throne of his glory.’

“Then what’s going to happen with the 12 apostles? In the regeneration, they’re going to sit upon 12 thrones judging the 12 tribes of Israel. They’re going to go into that kingdom with Him and rule and reign and have a fellowship—a communion sitting around the table .

“When you sit around the Father’s table, the idea is we communicate but there’s a family relationship. I don’t know about you, but most of us don’t have family meals at the end of the day every day and talk about what went on. There’s a deep bond in that.

"That’s the idea of sitting at the table, fellowshipping, delighting in what one another’s doing. Delighting in being able to tell the events of the day. There’s fellowship together with one another!’"

Eternal perspective

One of the more valuable emotions is the emotion of contentment and, surprisingly, it is one that is learned!

Jordan confirms, “It’s that emotional stability. Rather than being up and down, over here over there, bouncing off like a golf ball on a tile bathroom, it’s emotional stability that comes from that renewed mind. ‘Dependence on Christ as enough.’ It comes from depending on Him as your life. And that gives you some stability and that’s what it is!”

Paul pleads in Philippians 1:8, “For God is my record, how greatly I long after you all in the bowels of Jesus Christ.”

Jordan says, “That verse has always struck me that Paul would have to tell them that; he’d actually have to call God to record that he loved them! There’s something in Paul’s psyche that wasn’t naturally gregarious or expressing of that, I suppose. It isn’t personality bound. That’s the point.

“There’s some people that just want to hug your neck all the time and you just feel loved around them because they’re just always expressive and there’s others who are a little more reserved. With the guy who wants to pat you on the back and glad hand you all the time; that isn’t necessarily love. And the person’s who a little more reserved isn’t necessarily holding it back. That verse right there demonstrates that.

“If you want a title for Philippians you put down Phil. 3:14 and you’ve got it because the book is about pressing toward the mark. Pressing toward that identity that God has given us in Christ for the prize of the high-calling. What’s the prize? ‘Christ in you the hope of glory.’ Having His life be your life. So it’s a wonderful epistle dealing with that.

“When he comes to the end of all of the discussion, and he focuses on this issue of contentment, that’s the goal to which all of the things in Philippians are bringing you. An emotional stability; it’s that deep inner peace, that sense of the supernatural sufficiency of who you are in Christ.

“That’s where the book of Philippians is designed to bring you in the details of your life. It’s not just a bunch of doctrine--we’re talking about the life that I live. The attitudes that I have and the relationships and my marriage to my home, my grandchildren, my job, my recreation life . . . In all of my relationships in all of my emotions.

“It’s that stability to live in all of that with an understanding of my dependence of Him being my life. Being enough. Being the treasure. Being ,‘For to me to live is Christ,’ and to die is just to bring that into ultimate reality.

“The Philippians developed personal compassion. They put the needs of others above the wants of themselves. (Verse 14). They developed a generous spirit because when you begin to release the very thing that consumes you (money, in this case); when you let it go you develop the ability to give. That destroys the compulsion to get because it’s the opposite of it. That happens when you do what verses 17-18’s talking about—you develop an eternal perspective.

“You come to the place where you realize your spiritual and financial decisions are literally joined at the hip. And that EVERY decision you make about things, relationships and money and emotions—all of those decisions are really spiritual decisions that have an eternal impact and they can bring honor and praise to God or can destroy your testimony.

“You see, our treasure—the thing we invest our talents, time and money to—reveals and directs our heart. You remember Jesus said that: ‘Where a man’s treasure is there will his heart be also.’ Now that’s a principle anywhere in the Bible.

“I learned a secret about that years ago. If there was an area in my life that I noticed needed attention. Maybe it was a neglected area. I learned that if I would take that area of my life and just begin to focus some of my time and my treasure toward it—start spending some money toward it. Maybe it’s your wife. Whatever it is. You know what, your heart will follow. Because your treasure directs your heart. It’s that powerful a thing!

“We unconsciously tell God what standard of living we’re willing to live at. What standard of relationships we’re willing to have. What standard of emotional life we’re willing to put up with. What standard of money we’re willing to accept. And then we impose that on this verse 19.”

Back into the recesses

Revelation 20:13 says, “And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them: and they were judged every man according to their works.”

Death and hell are cast into the “lake of fire.” Physical death and spiritual death are cast into the lake which is the “second death.”

Jordan explains, “When he talks about the sea, that’s a little bit harder part of that verse. You say, ‘Is that like when Osama bin Laden died, they threw him in the Indian Ocean and crabs ate his body?’ Well, it’d be kind of a strange reference if it was.

“When he talks about the sea, it’s like that verse back in Exodus 15: ‘The horse and his rider hath he cast into the sea.’ What he did with Pharaoh is a picture of what he’s going to do with Satan and the sea.

“That deep up there and that deep down there is represented by the sea and that stuff in Job 9 about the chambers of the south down at the bottom (where the lake of fire is down at the bottom of the universe).

“That verse about the sea is a reference to Jude 6 when he’s talking about the judgment of the angels. And those angels are kept in chains of darkness awaiting the great day of judgment. In other words, not just lost men and women are judged here, but the loss of the angelic creation also find their judgment here.

“So they face this great white throne. Solomon builds a house up here that has this great white throne on it. The parallel is Jerusalem here on the earth and up north up here in the universe . . . by the way, come with me to Isaiah 14:12-13: ‘How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations!
[13] For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north.’

“Now that expression, ‘the sides of the north,’ there are passages back in Samuel where he talks about going up into the sides of the cave. That’s a reference to going way back into the recesses of the thing. When you get back to the farthest part of it.

“Up in the northern part of the universe there is a mountain—it’s called the mount of the congregation—up in the extreme northern part of the universe. There’s a mountain in which the angelic host congregate together to give account of themselves to God and to have their stewardship of their responsibility judged by God.

“Literally that mount of the congregation of the sides of the north is a throne of judgment. You remember in Job 1 and 2 when it says that the angels came to appear before God and Satan came with them?

“And people always say, ‘Well, how could Satan have gotten up into the third heaven where God is? Why would He let him?’ He wasn’t up there! These angels are coming and there’s a regular routine back here where they give account to God. We’ve read about it in Isaiah where in the millennium they come up on that regular basis and worship before the Lord; they do the same thing in the angelic host up here and where they come to is that mount of the congregation on the sides of the north.

“What Solomon’s doing over here is he’s building in the land of Palestine a replica of what God has in the universe. He’s not building it in order to honor the Lord; he’s going to build it in order to have a counterfeit to try to thwart what God’s doing.

“When you counterfeit something it’s not because you like the original real thing; it’s because you want to take the real thing and have something like it.

“Isaiah 14:15 says, ‘Yet thou shalt be brought down to hell, to the sides of the pit.’

“Over and over and over, what they do is try to make something like what God’s doing in order to subvert and supplant what God is doing.

“In Judges 17 you have a very critical moment in the life of the nation Israel. Micah had a house of gods and he made an ephod (the robe the priest wears) and a teraphim (the idol used) and consecrated one of his sons who became his priest. He’s got his own church. He starts his own religion. But his house of gods is a counterfeit to Israel’s religion. The message was, ‘You don’t need to go to Jerusalem; you can come here.’

“Revelation 12:12 says, ‘Therefore rejoice, ye heavens, and ye that dwell in them. Woe to the inhabiters of the earth and of the sea! for the devil is come down unto you, having great wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a short time.’

“That war in heaven where the Lord Jesus Christ comes out of the third heaven up here, there are passageways through here. They’re identified before you back in the book of Nehemiah. And He comes out of that heaven with the armies of God and He comes down into this universe and what He’s going to do—you see the reason He starts up here in His Second Advent on the earth is He starts up here and takes this territory away where Satan’s stronghold was. He comes back into the earth and comes in and takes possession.

“My point is what He does in the heavens is mirrored by what He’s going to do in the earth. And what Solomon was doing back there in building that house . . .

“Go to Ezekiel 31 and you’ll see those cedars are used to describe Pharaoh, a type of the Antichrist. When you look at these things about the Second Advent of Christ, the prophetic program and all of that, it’s fascinating to see how the scriptures continuously gives you more threads of understanding and how these things weave themselves together.”

'My house rules!'

In I Chronicles 28:9 David is talking to his son Solomon. The verse reads, “And thou, Solomon my son, know thou the God of thy father, and serve him with a perfect heart and with a willing mind: for the LORD searcheth all hearts, and understandeth all the imaginations of the thoughts: if thou seek him, he will be found of thee; but if thou forsake him, he will cast thee off for ever.”

David wanted to build God a house. The tabernacle was a temporary dwelling made out of animal skins wherein was the Ark (the presence of the Lord). But it was in disrepair at this point and so David wanted a permanent dwelling place.

Jordan explains, “God told David, ‘I’m going to build a house but you can’t do it because you’re a bloody man. I’ll let your son build it.’ David got all the provisions together to build a house. God gave David the pattern for the temple. But he charged Solomon, the man of peace, with the responsibility of setting up the temple, which is a picture of the millennial kingdom.

In verse 11 you see the word “house” is plural. David gave Solomon plans for more than one house.

******

Jordan says, “In I Kings 7 Solomon is now going to build. People like to point out, it only took him seven years to build the temple but it took him 13 years to build his own house. Which one is bigger? Well, you get the idea. Solomon was much more interested in his own house than he was the house of God.

“Verse 2 shows there’s this third house: ‘He built also the house of the forest of Lebanon; the length thereof was an hundred cubits, and the breadth thereof fifty cubits, and the height thereof thirty cubits, upon four rows of cedar pillars, with cedar beams upon the pillars.’

“Lebanon is north of Jerusalem, about 150 miles, and he builds a house in a cedar forest (Ezekiel 31). Just like a vine tree, a fig tree, a bramble tree and an olive tree represent the nation Israel in the Bible, the cedars represent something too.

“In verse 8 there’s another house! This a fourth house for the daughter of Pharaoh. This dude’s in the construction business.

“Cedar grows at a higher elevation so what he’s doing is going up. You read about the high places in the Scripture where the Baal worship is done and so forth. Verse 3 and 7. ‘Covered with cedar from one side of the floor to the other.’

“The house is 150 feet long, 75 feet wide, 45 feet high and on the end of it it’s got this porch where he sets up this throne and it’s the throne of judgment. Solomon is going to sit on that throne and judge from there.

“Chapter 10:14 says, ‘Now the weight of gold that came to Solomon in one year was six hundred threescore and six talents of gold.’ Notice the number: 666. Solomon was supposed to be the wisest man in the world. He wound up with 700 wives and 300 concubines. How smart could he have been? He was foolish.

"What happened is, as the Scripture says, is he turned to ‘outlandish women.’ Outlandish means a Gentile; somebody outside of Israel. They brought the false gods of the Gentiles into Israel and took his heart away from the Lord into false religion. And Solomon literally turns from the true son of David into the counterfeit becomes literally a type of the Antichrist.

*****

“Verse 14 is where the transition takes place and in verse 15 he takes all that stuff and puts it up there in that house that he built in the cedar forest of Lebanon.

“Verse 19-20 says, ‘The throne had six steps, and the top of the throne was round behind: and there were stays on either side on the place of the seat, and two lions stood beside the stays.
[20] And twelve lions stood there on the one side and on the other upon the six steps: there was not the like made in any kingdom.’

“He’s got six steps going down from the throne. He’s got 6 lions on each side. He just keeps that 666 everywhere goes. It becomes his number, his identity.

"I love verse 21: ‘And all king Solomon's drinking vessels were of gold, and all the vessels of the house of the forest of Lebanon were of pure gold; none were of silver: it was nothing accounted of in the days of Solomon.’

“Just going to have gold. When it says ‘it was nothing accounted of’ that’s another way of saying there’s nothing like it anywhere to be found. They were so opulent and wealthy that they made just the ordinary little utensils out of gold.

“Some years ago was the scandal with TV evangelist Jimmy Bakker and one of the raps on him was in his bathroom all the fixtures were made of gold. I think probably it was just gilded stuff but Solomon’s plumbing--everything was made of gold! The dude’s got some money, is the idea. All that stuff was up there in that house in the forests of Lebanon.

“Verse 18 says, ‘Moreover the king made a great throne of ivory, and overlaid it with the best gold.’ You remember what I Kings 7:7 said about the throne? He’s got this throne to judge from. But when you come over here in chapter 10 he says it was a great throne of ivory. What color is ivory? It’s white. There’s a great white throne of judgment. What does that bring to your mind?”

When no one's left . . .

All the turmoil in the ’60s came because this massive generation of people—the Baby Boomers--came on the scene at a time coupled with tremendous affluence, which brings in boredom.

Jordan says, “You know the old saying, ‘The idle mind is the devil’s workshop.’ But when you bring affluence into a culture you bring boredom. Now you don’t need to slop the hogs and feed the chickens—‘We can sleep in late that morning.’

“Children no longer have to go out and do the chores. I heard many times from my dad that every morning his first job was to get the firewood and when his mother got up he had to have the kitchen stove roaring hot, and if he didn’t he was in trouble.

“You know the nature of adolescents—‘If mom and dad do it this way, I’m going to do it that way.’ So they produce this tremendous cultural revolution. And though the children have grown up they still have the taste of children because the whole of society has been changed and picked up like a rising tide from its moorings and set adrift.

*****

Isaiah 3 is a time in Israel’s history when they were exactly the same kind of situation we are culturally and there’s a strong statement by Isaiah about what happens to a people in that situation:
[1] For, behold, the Lord, the LORD of hosts, doth take away from Jerusalem and from Judah the stay and the staff, the whole stay of bread, and the whole stay of water,
[2] The mighty man, and the man of war, the judge, and the prophet, and the prudent, and the ancient,
[3] The captain of fifty, and the honourable man, and the counseller, and the cunning artificer, and the eloquent orator.
[4] And I will give children to be their princes, and babes shall rule over them.
[5] And the people shall be oppressed, every one by another, and every one by his neighbour: the child shall behave himself proudly against the ancient, and the base against the honourable.
[6] When a man shall take hold of his brother of the house of his father, saying, Thou hast clothing, be thou our ruler, and let this ruin be under thy hand:
[7] In that day shall he swear, saying, I will not be an healer; for in my house is neither bread nor clothing: make me not a ruler of the people.
[8] For Jerusalem is ruined, and Judah is fallen: because their tongue and their doings are against the LORD, to provoke the eyes of his glory.

*****

Jordan explains, “Israel had contracted with God through Moses and the Mosaic covenant to receive certain blessings if they obeyed, and to receive certain cursings if they didn’t. They didn’t obey and so God is sending the cursings. He is directly intervening in the life of this nation to bring about disaster that they had contracted to receive if they rebelled against--morally and spiritually rebelled against His covenant. So He’s sending it to them.

“Notice what he says. The first thing they lose is prosperity. They’re going to lose the store that they have--the bread, the water, the basic elements of life. They’re going to lose their economic prosperity. They’re going to begin to be in want. ‘The mighty man, and the man of war, the judge, and the prophet, and the prudent, and the ancient, the captain of fifty, and the honourable man, and the counseller, and the cunning artificer, and the eloquent orator. And I will give children to be their princes, and babes shall rule over them.’

“I mean this country is going into judgment and God is going to take the blessing away from them and their enemies are going to surround them and take them captive and they’re going to go up into that 5th course of captivity in Leviticus 6 and they’re going to be taken away.

“Famine is going to come on them. Economic disaster is going to befall them. They’re going to lose their leaders. The mighty men, the leaders of the nation. They’re going to look around and there aren’t going to be any statesmen to lead them in the political and economic realm and in their institutions. They’re going to be adrift.

“Their military is going to be decimated. Disarmament is going to be the idea of the day. The judges are going to be so corrupt that they’re going to corrupt the law to the point that when you need them you’re not going to be able to depend on the legal system of the day. The prophet and the preachers are going to be prophesying lies. Jeremiah said the ‘people prophesy lies and the people love it so.’

“You see, the basic institutions of their society are just going to be decimated. ‘The prudent and the ancient.’ Prudence is the ability to make good decisions and their government is going to be in a situation where there aren’t going to be men and women in government who have the capacity to make good judgments and decisions about things.

“The ‘captain of fifty’ is going to go right down through the structure. It’s not just going to be the people at the top; it’s going to be the people that come down through the structure of government in society. The honorable men.

“They go out in their culture and they look for somebody that they can trust. Somebody in government, somebody in leadership; somebody in public position in the church and in education and in the government that they can say, ‘There’s somebody who can tell me the truth. There’s somebody who’s decent and honorable that I can trust what they say.’ Those people are going to be gone!

“The counselor. That’s somebody who gives you good advice. You’re not going to get good advice. Not just bad decisions but there’s nobody there to tell you what you ought to do! That’s not going to be found anywhere in their institutions and government society anymore!

“ ‘A cunning artificer.’ That’s the artist. And the oracle. The real true artist, whether it’s with painting or music or words, the real true artists are going to be gone! And all that’s going to be left is the filth. When I read down through that I think, ‘You read that and you say Wow, somebody’s been reading the Chicago Tribune, the Sun-Times and the US News and World Report! Somebody’s been listening to NBC, CBS, CNN, ABC!’

“But this Isaiah, 750 years before Christ. But it really sounds similar. ‘And I will give children to be their princes and babies shall rule over them.’ That’s what Bork called those ‘wave of savages who must be civilized’ by their parents and by their schools and churches.

“What’s happening are the people who have been charged with civilizing the children and the babies, and bringing them in and teaching them the traditions of the culture they’re in so they would know how to live, and teaching them in their history of who they were as a nation and what God’s purpose for them was, in Israel’s case.

“Those people have lost their moorings and there’s no one there to do that. And the impact of that absence is when, every year, this new generation of kids that come on the scene, there’s no one there to give it to them! So they’re set adrift and they’re left to their own devises.

"The adults have lost the strength of character, the will, the backbone. There’s no one there to tell the child, ‘NO! You can’t do that! NO, this is wrong!’ There’s no one left to give them the directions and teach them what’s right and wrong.”

These birds back here!

Jordan was a young man working in the Mobile Rescue Mission when Brother Reynolds taught him “one of the most fascinating things.” He recalls, “I never really appreciated it back then but in later years I came to realize this thing is SOMETHING!”

Genesis 5 starts with, “This is the book of the generations of Adam.” It compares with Matthew 1 that starts, “The book of the generation of Jesus Christ.” There are only two of those books in the Bible.

“Everybody in that chapter in Genesis dies except Enoch and he’s taken because God took him,” explains Jordan. “Everybody in Adam’s lineage dies because in Adam all die, but in Christ all should be made alive. So when you go to Matthew 1 and the book of the generation of Jesus Christ nobody dies, but he says, “Abraham begat Isaac.”

“Everybody in Jesus’ genealogy in the book of the generation of Jesus Christ gets life; everybody in Adam’s genealogy gets death. And you go, ‘Hmm . . .’ You know why that is? As in Adam all died. As in Christ, all shall be made alive.

“It’s fascinating the way the people are listed here. First there’s Adam. The name Adam means ‘man.’ The next guy, Seth, means ‘appointed.’ The next one is Enos; his name means ‘mortal.’ After him is Cainan and his name means ‘sorrow.’ Mahalaleel means ‘the blessed of God.’ Jared means ‘shall come’ and it’s the idea of come down. Enoch means ‘teacher or teaching.’ Methuselah means ‘his death brings.’

What happens with Enoch is God gave him a revelation because Enoch walked with God until after Methuselah was born and when that guy dies he’s 969 years old. Methuselah’s the oldest guy that lived and when he died, that’s when the Flood came.

“So God had a man in the earth who demonstrated His longsuffering in the days of Noah. After Methuselah, in the text is Lamech and Lamech means despairing. After him, Noah (no. 10) means ‘comfort or rest.’

“Think about that: ‘Man, appointed mortal sorrow, but the blessed God shall come down teaching; His death brings the despairing rest.’ You see what I did? I made a sentence out of their names. You go figure, there isn’t any way under God’s heaven or the devil’s hell that you could arrange the names of a bunch of guys in Genesis 5 that share the gospel message like that! You can’t know that message until you come to the Apostle Paul!

“In I Corinthians 2, Paul says that there was some info about the Cross (and that info in Genesis 5 is it) but that it couldn’t be known--it was kept secret because if it wasn’t kept secret they wouldn’t have crucified the Lord of glory.

"But God had it encoded into the Word of God in such a way that once you come over here and you know it, and then you go back and start reading and studying, you uncover, ‘Wait a minute, in the names of these birds back here in Adam’s line he’s got the secret message encoded for you!’ ”

Connecting point

Romans 4:4. “The only response grace will accept is faith. Grace will not accept works as a response. Romans 6:11. I Thess. 2:13. What is it that makes God’s grace work in your life? Believing it! Verse 19. God’s grace requires a participating response of faith. It’s the response it will accept but it requires it in order to activate it!

“The gap between what you know about what God says and how it impacts your life is faith. The key to appropriating into your experience the reality of who you are in Christ is faith. ‘It’s not I but Christ.’ The connecting point is to believe that and to walk by faith.”

*****

“All the little Christian celebrities who write books on leadership all write on Nehemiah. Okay, that’s a great thing, Nehemiah was a great leader, blah, blah, blah and all that stuff. But boy, when you read back there, you know there’s a picture of New Jerusalem in the third heaven in the book of Nehemiah?! I read that and I say, ‘Wow, now I’m more interested in that than I am trying to figure out how to make you do what I want you to do because I want you to do it!’ Which is what all these leadership things are about.”

*****

“There’s going to be universal healthcare then. Isaiah 33:24 says that. He’s going to remove the curse of sickness. He brought Israel out of Egypt, took her into the wilderness and said, ‘If you don’t behave, I’m going to smite you with the botch of Egypt.’ I love those phrases. I don’t know what that is but it sure don’t sound like I want it. And diseases were inflicted on Israel for their disobedience.

“Leviticus 26 talks about one of the curses God would place on them for their disobedience was the burning ague. You say what’s that? A fever in your eyes. The kingdom is going to remove that curse and you won’t have to have hay fever in the spring and the fall.

“If you die at 100, Isaiah 65 says, you’ll be considered a child, because
the longevity will be for a thousand years. In fact, the inhabitants of that kingdom aren’t going to have to die. They’re going to be able to have eternal life.

“By the way, they don’t just live, they’re going to be able to populate the earth again and have children. The difficulty when you have a child, though, is whose that kid kin to? In the Millennium only saved Gentiles go in but when they begin to have kids, those kids aren’t just automatically saved.

“Nobody’s automatically saved. So there’s going to be some problems in the Millennium. That’s why it’s going to be ‘the judgment of the nations.’

“Zechariah 14:3. He’s going to come back and the first place His feet are going to touch the ground is the last place they were on the earth before He left in Acts 1. He ascended of the Mount of Olives and He’ll come back there.”

A permanent indwelling

The work of the Holy Spirit is to separate the Believer from the world and it happens when you get saved in any age.

Jordan says, “Coming to Christ and getting saved, whether it’s in our program or Israel’s program, isn’t just adding a philosophical idea to your repertoire of knowledge. It’s coming into an irresistible collision with the life force of God the Holy Spirit.

“We become new creatures. Israel becomes a new nation. In the Old Testament, the Spirit of God did not come to permanently reside in the Believer. In the new covenant, He will.

“When He says He dwelleth with you and shall be in you, you know Him for He dwelleth. Now that’s the contrast He’s getting at. He is with you. He shall be in you. He’s with you—that’s the Old Testament status.

“John 14:16 says, ‘And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever;’ He’s already said that HE will abide forever. So this Holy Spirit, when He comes, is going to come not simply to be with them but to be IN them, and when He’s in them, He’s going to be there permanently. Now that’s part of the ministry of the new covenant that Christ is introducing here and is going to talk with them about in great detail in chapters 15-16.

*****

“In the Old Testament, the Holy Spirit would come on people, would go in them and would be with them, but He didn’t permanently stay.

“There are three characters as great examples in the Old Testament. One is Saul. The Holy Spirit came on Saul, came into Saul and Saul prophesied, and then the Holy Spirit left him and never came back! Saul repented after Samuel told him he was going to lose the kingdom but God said, ‘It’s too late.’

“With Samson, the Spirit of God came on him but he thought it was the time he spent down at the gym and his pretty hair and all that stuff that made him such a hot buffed-up dude. Delilah cut his hair for him. He got a haircut down at the devil’s barbershop and what happened? The Spirit of God left and the Scripture says ‘he wist not that the spirit left him.’

“The result was the Philistines fell upon him, bored out his eyes, put him in a grinding machine and had him grinding. They bound him, they blinded him and had him grinding. There’s a famous sermon from Jeremiah about what sin does to you. ‘It’ll blind you, bind you and grind you.’

“There’s old Samson. The Philistines get him out one night and are going to make sport of him. He’s a blind, pitiful shell of himself but they use him to mock him. He had been a fearful guy to them. He’d slain many mighty Philistines. He was an enemy.

“They bring him in to mock him, tie him to a pillar. Samson says, ‘Lord, if you just let me one more time bring the house down I’m willing to go,’ and he did. The Spirit of God went back on him, gave him the strength and he knocked the pillar over and brought the whole house down and killed them all, himself included.

“With Samson, the Spirit was on him, was in him, left, and then came back. With Saul, the Spirit was on him, left and never came back. Then you got David.

“With King David, the Holy Spirit came on him, was in him and was with him even though David sinned grievously, personally. He commits adultery. He steals another man’s wife. Then he has her husband murdered. Dastardly things. When he repents, Nathan the prophet puts his finger in his nose and says, ‘Thou art the man.’ Remember that?

“David repented. He wrote Psalm 51 to describe what that repentance was like. He said it was ‘bloodguiltiness’ like the breaking of bones. It was a bitter, painful experience. And in the midst of all that, he cries out to God, ‘Take not thy Holy Spirit from me!’ Even in all of that, God never took His Spirit away from him. The spirit of God stayed with David and never left.

“You go back and read about when Moses gets the skilled laborers together to build the tabernacle. The Holy Spirit came on the artisans. You ever hear anybody pray, ‘Lord, guide the hand of the surgeon now as he goes to do surgery?’

"I used to wonder where they got that from and then a fellow told me it’s like what God did back there in Exodus when He guided the hands of the artisan to give them skill in doing their job to build the artifacts for the tabernacle. Yes, the Spirit of God came on him and did that but then you know what He did? He left.

“All that coming-going, coming-going-staying-and-not-leaving—that’s before the new covenant. So it’s not right to say that under the old covenant they never had the Spirit of God at all. They did—He came on them, He would go with them, He indwelled them. He went in Daniel, for example. But what He didn’t do is He didn’t regenerate them and He didn’t permanently dwell with them. That’s going to change.

“Jesus said, ‘I’m going to go away to the Cross, be resurrected, ascend into heaven and I’m going to send the Holy Spirit, and when He comes your relationship with Him is going to be new and different, permanent. He’ll be with you but he’ll be in you permanently. A permanent indwelling.

“Now if you want to see when that takes place, John 14:18 says, ‘I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you.’ That’s not like verse 3 where He’s talking about the Second Coming. He’s talking about, ‘I’m going to come to you in the person of the Holy Spirit.’ Once again, you see the Trinity in action here. You had all three of them back in verse 16.

“Down here when He says, ‘I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you,’ He’s not going to leave the throne of heaven. It’s the Spirit of Christ that’s going to come. One of the members of the Trinity. Verse 19 says, ‘Yet a little while, and the world seeth me no more; but ye see me: because I live, ye shall live also.’

“Think about what He’s saying: ‘Because I live you live.’ He’s saying He is the source of life and not just life, but spiritual life—eternal life. You know, when you read the Lord Jesus Christ’s conversation, when He just talks about Himself, the whole thing is He was either a liar, a lunatic or the Lord. One of greatest demonstrations of His deity is just the common assumptions He makes when He talks and He assumes life--all life--is there because of Him.

“Paul says it in Colossians 1. He says, ‘By him all things consist.’ The reason things hold together and life exists is because of Him; the consistency of His word, His integrity.

“Verse 20 says, ‘At that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you.’ That day is the day back in verses 16-17 when He sends the Comforter, the spirit of truth, who’s going to be in you. And when He’s in you, ‘They’re going to know that Christ is in my Father, that ye are in me and that I am in you.’

“That’s that new covenant relationship; the permanent provision and promise of the new testament and the new covenant. It comes into their experience and is inaugurated on the day of Pentecost when He comes.”

*****

Jeremiah 31:31: Ezekiel 36 explains how He’s going to do the heart-writing of His law into their hearts. It’s a supernatural operation. Ezekiel 36:24. What did He say in Jeremiah? ‘I’m gonna write my law in your heart. I’m gonna give you a new heart. A new spirit will I put within you.’ What spirit would that be? There’s the Holy Spirit coming.

“What does He take away? The stone, or the hardness of the heart. He takes away the rebellion against the truth of God’s Word. He that be often reproved hardeneth his heart. You hear the Word of God over and over and you reject it and that much reproof hardens. He said, ‘I’ll take that away. I’ll take away the effects of all that unbelief and I’ll give you a responsive heart. I will put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes.’ Isaiah 32.

Parting parts

Judgment of Israel in the 70th week of Daniel.

Jordan says, “There’s the passage where Paul says, ‘So all Israel shall be saved.’ That’s talking about how it’s only redeemed Israel that goes into the kingdom. The Antichrist isn’t designed to purge America or Europe or Africa or Australia. His purpose is to personify the lie program and purge the rebel out of Israel so you have the judgment of Israel.

“When Jesus Christ judges the nations, He does that when He comes in flaming fire with His mighty angels taking vengeance on them that know not God. After the millennium, we come to the final judgment—‘the last judgment.’ This is the one you often hear about that is confused with all the other ones.

“Revelation 20:11 says, ‘And I saw a great white throne, and him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away; and there was found no place for them.’

“When he says the great white throne comes out of heaven, there’s no place to hide for these dudes. They’re going to stand before God small and great.

“II Peter 3:10 says, ‘But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up.’

“Literally the atomic structure of the physical universe, as you know it, is going to be dissolved. Verse 12 says, ‘Looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of God, wherein the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat?’ That’s the time we’re studying about in Rev. 20. It’s the ultimate end of what’s going on.

“In Rev. 20 we’re coming to the climactic events in the history of fallen man. The climactic events of the satanic rebellion that sought to usurp God’s authority in the heavens and the earth.

“Revelation 20:12 says, ‘And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works.’

“The first thing you want to notice is when he talks about the dead there, he’s talking about a certain category of dead people. Go back to verse 4: ‘And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them: and I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God, and which had not worshipped the beast, neither his image, neither had received his mark upon their foreheads, or in their hands; and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years.

“When he says he saw thrones and they sat upon them, that’s going to be the Old Testament saints. They’re resurrected and then you have the tribulation saints (the souls) that die.

“I don’t know if you ever thought about the kingdom but there will be an inauguration day. There’s a coronation day for the king and it’s talked about all through the Old Testament.

“There are whole psalms written about this event. There are whole chapters in Isaiah that describe it. The first thing Jesus Christ will do is He will stand up and speak and command forth all of the saints from Adam all the way down—all through the Old Testament, to be resurrected.

“That’s how Psalm 99 can talk about Moses and Samuel. They didn’t live together but walk together into that kingdom.

“Jesus told them in Matthew 8:11 that the day’s going to come when Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and people from all over the world will come and sit down together in the kingdom. Not only them but the tribulation saints are resurrected. They’re raised to live and reign with Christ for a thousand years. You have all the saved people from Adam to the beginning of the millennium are now resurrected.

Verse 5 says, ‘But the rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished. This is the first resurrection.’ If you aren’t up at this time you in trouble. Verse 6 says, ‘Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection: on such the second death hath no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with him a thousand years.’

“Being in the first resurrection is important. By the way, you notice how he says blessed and holy is he that hath PART in the first resurrection? The first resurrection has different parts to it!

“It has a part that affects the church the Body of Christ. It has a part that affects the Old Testament saints. It has a part that affects the tribulation saints. It has several parts to it. That’s why in I Cor. 15, Paul says there is an order. Every man in his own order in his own place in his own part and that makes up the first resurrection; it doesn’t take place all in one moment. It takes place in a series of parts.

“That’s important because people come along and say see the resurrection doesn’t take place til the beginning of the millennium, therefore the Rapture can’t take place til the beginning of the millennium because you’re in the resurrection. But the first resurrection has several parts to it and there’s an order to them.

“If you’re in the first resurrection, you don’t have to worry about the great white throne because the lake of fire, the second death is not going to touch you. But the rest of the dead, they still stay dead for a thousand years and then at the end of the 1,000 years here were are in Rev. 20:12: ‘And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works.’

“So what we’re dealing with in chapter 20 when he says the dead, you’re dealing with the rest of the dead; all the dead that haven’t been resurrected. Who are they? They’re the lost! They’re the lost from Cain all the way down.

“All the lost from all the ages are going to stand before God, small and great. That means that death is not annihilation. They still exist! They’re dead but they’re going to stand before God. They’re dead but they exist!

“Rev. 19:20 says, ‘And the beast was taken, and with him the false prophet that wrought miracles before him, with which he deceived them that had received the mark of the beast, and them that worshipped his image. These both were cast alive into a lake of fire burning with brimstone.’

“They both were cast alive into the lake of fire burning with brimstone. When is that? That’s before the kingdom. Rev. 20: 1-5. The beast and false prophet are cast into the lake of fire before the kingdom. A thousand years after Satan is taken and he’s cast into the same lake of fire where the beast and false prophets ARE. You see it says ARE?! They’re still there!

“If you can be cast into the lake of fire and be there for a thousand years, you weren’t snuffed out. You weren’t burnt up. If you can last a thousand years, you can probably last a lot longer. People don’t go to hell and become annihilated and burned up into cinders and ashes.

“The verse in Malachi 4 and back in Psalms, where it talks about the Lord coming and people being burned and left as ashes, that’s talking about their physical body being burned and destroyed. But there’s more to you than your physical body. There’s your soul; there’s your inner man and these guys get cast into the lake of fire and exist for a thousand years and are still there squirming and worming.

“You say, ‘How is that possible?’ Moses comes out to a burning bush and the text says it burned but was not consumed. Hebrews says our God is a consuming fire, but it’s not a consuming fire that annihilates, it’s a fire that burns perpetually. How can that be? It’s a fire that God created. He does His will and accomplishes His purpose.

“Mark 9 says they will be salted with fire. What does salt do? It preserves. The fire’s literally going to preserve them from destruction.”

Context is king

A woman recently came to Jordan and told him her real estate agent was using Jeremiah 32:15 on her to pressure her into buying. The verse says, “For thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel; Houses and fields and vineyards shall be possessed again in this land.”

Jordan says, “By the way, isn’t it interesting--almost 300 times in your Bible God is described as the ‘God of Israel’? The God of the Bible is never described as the God of Ismael. He’s never described as the God of Muhammad. He’s never described as the God of America. He’s always described as the God of Israel; the God of Jacob.

"If you’re going to understand the God of the Bible you’re going to have to understand something about the nation Israel because that’s whose God He is throughout Scripture.

“But back to Jeremiah, there’s something fascinating going on in this passage. Jeremiah’s not having a very good day. Verse 2 says, ‘For then the king of Babylon's army besieged Jerusalem: and Jeremiah the prophet was shut up in the court of the prison, which was in the king of Judah's house.’

“Nebuchadnezzar has invaded the land and taken Israel captive. Jeremiah never gets carried away to Babylon like Ezekiel and Daniel but is left in Jerusalem. He prophesies that ‘Nebby’s gonna come.’ This got him in trouble. Everybody said, ‘Agh, you’re a nut job! We don’t like you!’ Well, here Nebby did come and Jeremiah is said to be carried to Babylon, stays in the land and watches his beloved nation collapse. Think about an invading army coming in and taking over.

“Jeremiah is in the land and watches the economic collapse and the cultural demise as Israel is uprooted and carried into Babylon into captivity. It would make no economic sense . . . it would be somewhere between risky and stupid in that context to go buy a piece of real estate.

“In verse 6 his uncle comes and says, ‘Look, here’s a piece of property, it’s in the family and I’m getting out of here. I’m going to get my money out of it. So Jerry, it’s yours to buy.’

“That passage’s not talking about buying a piece of real estate in 2011 in the U.S. of America, telling you, ‘No matter what the economic condition might be where you are, you can pray and get God to change your little neighborhood’s economic situation.’

“That’s not advice about buying real estate in the dispensation of grace. It’s advice about what God’s going to do with Israel. He scattered them and He said, ‘I’m going to bring them back and where it doesn’t look good now, listen, I’m not going to forget what I intended to do with my people.’

“That passage has a context. When you see the context you get over the pretext and thinking, ‘Well, I can just claim something because God said it and l like it.’ People love that verse back in Jeremiah 29:11, ‘For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the LORD, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end.’ But they don’t like the ones over at the end of the book about war and being scattered.

“Paul said, ‘I’ve learned; I’ve been instructed. The Scripture corrected my bad thinking and told me what was right and what the truth of what God said gave me inner fortification that I could stand and, no matter what, go ahead. ‘In all thy ways acknowledge the Lord and he will direct thy paths.’ You know that verse in Proverbs?

“If in every area of your life you acknowledge the Lord He’ll direct you. He doesn’t put a sign post down, ‘SELL NOW.’ The way He directs your path is the counsel of His Word. But that doesn’t happen unless you acknowledge Him in all the details of your life.”

*****

Paul writes in II Corinthians 3:6, “Who also hath made us able ministers of the new testament; not of the letter, but of the spirit: for the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life.”

Jordan reasons, “It’s interesting he doesn’t say new covenant. You know the difference between a testament and a covenant?

“Hebrews 9:16 says, ‘For where a testament is, there must also of necessity be the death of the testator.’ You can have a covenant, that’s a contract, and death doesn’t enter into it. You go and buy an automobile. That sales contract does not envision your death; it envisions you living.

“A testament is something that envisions death; in fact, it doesn’t come into effect until after you die. It’s the ‘last will and testament.’ Your testament spells out the inheritance of your heirs. Verse 17 says, ‘For a testament is of force after men are dead: otherwise it is of no strength at all while the testator liveth.’

“By the way, that’s an important verse dispensationally. That verse means Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, the earthly ministry of Jesus Christ, is not in the new testament. Why? Because a testament is a force after the death of the testator and when did Jesus Christ die? At the end of those books, not the beginning, and not through almost all of the ministries in those books.

“If you can’t rightly divide the word of truth you never figure that verse but you can’t read that verse and NOT rightly divide the Scripture. You see the Bible forces you to be a dispensationalist. It’s religion that keeps that way from you.

“The old testament did not begin in Genesis, it began in the book of Exodus when God gave it to Moses. The new testament begins after the death of the Lord Jesus Christ. When he says God’s made us able ministers of the new testament, He’s talking about the fact that you and I have been given a part in the inheritance.

“Ephesians 1:11 says, ‘In whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will:’ You and I, as members of the Body of Christ do not have any inheritance in what Jesus Christ won at Calvary through a covenant.

“God covenanted with the nation Israel to give those benefits to Israel. But He’s included us in the benefits of the Crosswork, not by covenant but by His grace. Not by the covenant, but by His death and resurrection. We’re not part of the covenant God made with Israel. You don’t go back there and take that statement about God making a covenant with the house of Jacob and say, ‘That’s me!’

“You say, ‘Well how do I get in?!’ You get in by God’s grace. You get in because before the foundation of the world, before He ever made the covenant with Abraham, He’d already planned to include you in the benefits of the death of His Son. He just didn’t tell anybody but now we know. He did it in a secret fashion.”

'And found the eleven gathered together . . .'

• Hint: The only verse of Paul's that has all of them is II Corinthians 11:11, in which he pleads, "Wherefore? because I love you not? God knoweth." Here’s a list from MSN’s website this morning about the significance of 11/11/11:
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• You may have to be a mathematician to get excited by the numerical tricks that 11—which is the sixth prime number—can perform: When multiplied by itself, the number 11 equals a palindrome every time—from 11 x 11 (which equals 121) to 1,111,111 x 1,111,111 (which equals a pleasing 1,234,567,654,321) and beyond.
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• Today is also Armistice Day, marking the end of World War I, when Germany and the Allied nations called for resolution on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month. Some hotels and resorts in the U.S. are using today's special date to pay homage to men and women who've served in the military, with special discounts and donations to the USO.
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• When broken down into separate digits (1+1=2), the number 11 resonates with the number two and, therefore, takes on additional attributes. Today is plush for matters of the heart, since 11 is commonly associated with intuition, inspiration, compassion, and tolerance, while two, the number associated with feminine energy, embodies union and partnership.
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• According to numerology, each number holds a unique vibration with associated traits attached to it. One and two symbolize masculine and feminine energy, respectively, with one deemed as "the creator." When repeated, one becomes 11, which is considered the Master Number, representing rebirth and, you guessed it, new beginnings.
• Couples worldwide have long hitched their marital fortunes to special dates, signing their nuptials on ones that bear the same number for the month, day and year. Wedding industry experts believe it's a combination of superstition and meaning that make them so desirable, but many couples simply want an unforgettable anniversary date. According to David's Bridal, 57,000 ceremonies will take place today, surpassing the 39,000 weddings that commenced last year on 10/10/10.

Beckoning with his hand

Acts is probably the most difficult book in the Bible for people to get straight and keep straight.

Jordan says, “It’s amazing, it’s hard enough to get it right and then you’ll see somebody get it right and then later they will have lost it. The Book of Acts, the more you keep reading it, if you don’t get it started right and get something nailed down . . . it’s so fluid as you go through it that it just sort of jumps around on the page.

“There are three books in the New Testament that, if you’re going to kill yourself, you’re going to do it in these three books. Every heretic, every cult, ever ‘ism’ and chism, uses Matthew, Acts and Hebrews to get themselves all messed up and it’s because they’re transition books.

“In Matthew, you’re coming out of the Old Testament with just the law and prophets and from the entrance of John the Baptist the kingdom of God is preached and you make the transition with the ministry of John and the Lord there.

“In Acts, you begin with the presentation of the offer of the kingdom to the nation Israel and you move from the kingdom message and the kingdom program, going in full swing, into the dispensation of grace and the mystery and the Body of Christ.

“So you’re moving in Acts from the kingdom program to the body program; from prophecy to the mystery. Then when you go to the Book of Hebrews, you’re going back into the kingdom program again and Hebrews stands at the head of the nine Hebrews epistles at the end of your Bible that represent doctrine for the ages to come and those people in that time period.

“Hebrews focuses on moving from the old covenant to the new covenant, but moving to it in a way you couldn’t have done in Matthew and early Acts because now when you get to Hebrews you’ve got all of Paul’s epistles sitting there in front of you.

“You’ll notice people will get into those books and they got all kind of goofball . . . I mean, if you’re going to teach somebody they’re going to lose their salvation, where do they go? Matthew and Hebrews. And if you’re going to teach somebody they need to speak in tongues, where do they go? Acts. If you’re going to teach somebody they need to be water-baptized to get saved, where do they go? Acts 2:38.

“You want to teach somebody they got to get the second blessing—you know, you get saved and later on you get the baptism of the Holy Ghost and the purification and all that business, you go to the Book of Acts. And if you want to get somebody real confused, you take them and show about four different ways to get saved in the Book of Acts. Then you become a Campbellite because a Campbellite just adds them all together.

“So anytime you find somebody basing their doctrine on the Book of Acts, you’re finding somebody building their ministry on quicksand, and that’s true dispensationally and doctrinally. Soon or later, they’re going to go under.

“You never interpret Paul’s epistles in light of the Book of Acts; you interpret the Book of Acts in the light of Paul’s epistles.
“With Paul’s ministry is where the change starts. It doesn’t happen in Acts 2 or after Acts 28; the change from the old to the new begins with the raising up of the Apostle Paul in mid-Acts.

“The purpose of the Book of Acts is to present the fall of Israel and God’s reason for sending salvation to the Gentiles apart from the kingdom program and apart from His chosen people. Write that down in your mind. The purpose of the Book of Acts is NOT a history lesson. It’s not a pattern for Believers today. It’s not the design by which the church the Body of Christ should operate today. It is written for the purpose of setting forth the fall of Israel and God’s reason for sending salvation to the Gentiles APART from Israel through a NEW message.

“And if you’ll get that in your mind, and you’ll see that and consider it dispensationally like that, you’ll see the fruit of studying the Book of Acts can be very sweet.

“If you do it the other way, the traditional way where it’s a history lesson and there’s all these examples and principles to live by today, you’re going to have problems. You’re going to wreck your ministry trying to follow things that don’t work that God has rendered impossible for you to do today!”