The Greeks were interested in what makes the ‘summum bonum’ in life (the supreme good) and they considered that to be happiness, spending a lot of time trying to think and focus on how to accomplish it.
Jordan says, “I’m always fascinated when people talk about those things and the cultural analysis of it in a ‘post-modern relativistic world' where there’s modernism and post-modernism and realism and rationalism.
“I listen to all that stuff and thing, ‘You know these guys are all just talking about Genesis 3!’ It’s like Ecclesiastes says, ‘There’s nothing new under the sun.’ I know, you can’t go out and pay $150,000 for a university education and not say you’re learning something that you couldn’t learn by reading Genesis 3, but you can and humanity is just the same all along.
“There are two ways that the Greeks and people today try to solve the problem of contentment. In Acts 17, when Paul was in Athens, the center of the Greek world and the intellectual center of the world of his day, it says, ‘Now while Paul waited for them at Athens, his spirit was stirred in him, when he saw the city wholly given to idolatry.
[17] Therefore disputed he in the synagogue with the Jews, and with the devout persons, and in the market daily with them that met with him.
[18] Then certain philosophers of the Epicureans, and of the Stoicks, encountered him. And some said, What will this babbler say? other some, He seemeth to be a setter forth of strange gods: because he preached unto them Jesus, and the resurrection.’ "
*****
In Scofield’s reference Bible, Scofield has notes about both the Epicureans and Stoics trying to explain who they are. He writes of the Epicureans, “Disciples of Epicurus, B.C. 342-271, who abandoned as hopeless the search by reason for pure truth (cf John 18:38) seeking instead true pleasure by experience.”
Of the Stoics he wrote, “Disciples of Zeno, B.C. 280, and Chrysippus, B.C. 240. This philosophy was founded on human self-sufficiency, inculcated stern self-repression, the solidarity of the race, and the unity of Deity. Epicureans and Stoics divided the apostolic world.”
Jordan says, “They were the two dominant thinkers and culture drivers of their day and the reason was there were two extremes on how to solve the contentment issue.
“For the Epicureans it was getting, acquiring, having, conquering, owning, achieving. ‘You get enough stuff and you’ll be satisfied.’ That was a big thing in the Roman Empire: ‘Go out and conquer, conquer, conquer and we’ll be satisfied.’ That’s the dominant thinking of the Western world. Certainly, it’s the way the West and America operates. The more we can get, the bigger the better.
“Now you know it doesn’t work. The premise is what you’re looking for keeps moving. It’s elusive.
“The Stoics were the other way. They said, ‘If you desire less and less you can desire less and less until nothing matters. Just get disconnected from things.’ Now, that’s the Eastern thinking; the Buddhist mentality. ‘The way to get peace is to get less and less and be detached until it just doesn’t matter.’
“For the Stoics, the big illustration of that is they would take a valuable vase and break it and say, ‘It doesn’t matter.’ A child would die and they’d say, ‘It doesn’t really matter. Doesn’t hurt.’ And you were to just grin-and-bear-it kind of a thing. That way it can’t impact you.
“But that doesn’t work either, does it? Somebody once said, ‘Stoics have
made their heart a desert and called it peace.’ You can’t do that because things DO matter! God put a conscience inside of you and things do matter. Right and wrong does matter.
“A couple of years ago in Chicago, a 12-year-old gang member shot an 11-year-old kid but the commentary about it was, ‘How could you have children care nothing about life until they’re just willing to murder each other?!!’ Not adults who’ve gotten bitter with life but 12 year olds? That is the Stoic mentality. You’re just less and less detached from anything that matters until nothing matters and so there’s no value in anything. But that just makes for more discontentment.”
Thursday, September 29, 2011
Sunday, September 25, 2011
From O'Hair land
Last Monday morning, I was catching up with the residents on my floor when 60-year-old Tom, a Catholic-turned-Unitarian who has a degree in theology, asked me what the Sunday sermon was about at my church. I simply answered, “Contentment.” He responded, “That’s what AA calls ‘acceptance.’ ”
I am someone who has hardly been the model of contentment the last few years. The biggest takeaways from Jordan’s message, which I was very appreciative to have his “inside” insights on, is contentment is not ever to be based on circumstances and it involves having deep down real peace no matter what life throws at you.
Living in Manhattan for seven years, I was endlessly fascinated by how people on the island, whether rich or poor to the point of homeless, kept their mood so seemingly high. I often thought, “They don’t even know they need heaven because this is their idea of heaven on earth.” I know I was head over heels in love with the island for years and only toward the very end of my residency did I start to see its real failings.
Jordan also pointed out the basic Bible tenet that contentment is often the
result of gratefulness. He gave the analogy of the husband who was disappointed with how his wife turned out until he really pondered what was good about her rather than looking at her faults.
If I was to come with a “Grateful For” list just off the top of my head right now as I sit in my studio (right after watching the Bears lose to Green Bay this Sunday evening) I would include (in no order of importance):
1. Being able to jog on the lakeshore (across the street from my building) when the Fall waves make it really mimic the ocean
2. Having Wifi internet and a converter box to make my TV work
3. My lovely plants of all different varieties (including a thriving cactus plant) that give off such beautiful green colors when the afternoon sun shines on them
4. A refrigerator that works well and is crammed with food
5. Knowing my car has its own designated spot in the private back parking lot, one that I can always count on being open, comfortable in the fact I never need fight for street parking and then risk a ticket
6. Living in the same city as my favorite church, Shorewood, knowing that J.C. O’Hair is here with me in spirit as I labor for the Lord so very close to the old North Shore Church he built and is still standing, with its “Christ Died For My Sins” billboard still intact and visible from Lake Shore Drive (once the tree leaves all fall off) and the Red Line train
I am someone who has hardly been the model of contentment the last few years. The biggest takeaways from Jordan’s message, which I was very appreciative to have his “inside” insights on, is contentment is not ever to be based on circumstances and it involves having deep down real peace no matter what life throws at you.
Living in Manhattan for seven years, I was endlessly fascinated by how people on the island, whether rich or poor to the point of homeless, kept their mood so seemingly high. I often thought, “They don’t even know they need heaven because this is their idea of heaven on earth.” I know I was head over heels in love with the island for years and only toward the very end of my residency did I start to see its real failings.
Jordan also pointed out the basic Bible tenet that contentment is often the
result of gratefulness. He gave the analogy of the husband who was disappointed with how his wife turned out until he really pondered what was good about her rather than looking at her faults.
If I was to come with a “Grateful For” list just off the top of my head right now as I sit in my studio (right after watching the Bears lose to Green Bay this Sunday evening) I would include (in no order of importance):
1. Being able to jog on the lakeshore (across the street from my building) when the Fall waves make it really mimic the ocean
2. Having Wifi internet and a converter box to make my TV work
3. My lovely plants of all different varieties (including a thriving cactus plant) that give off such beautiful green colors when the afternoon sun shines on them
4. A refrigerator that works well and is crammed with food
5. Knowing my car has its own designated spot in the private back parking lot, one that I can always count on being open, comfortable in the fact I never need fight for street parking and then risk a ticket
6. Living in the same city as my favorite church, Shorewood, knowing that J.C. O’Hair is here with me in spirit as I labor for the Lord so very close to the old North Shore Church he built and is still standing, with its “Christ Died For My Sins” billboard still intact and visible from Lake Shore Drive (once the tree leaves all fall off) and the Red Line train
Tuesday, September 20, 2011
Mighty men
Atheist Richard Dawkins says we in the 21st Century are the luckiest of all because, “Whatever your profession, whether a stock broker or bus driver or surfing instructor, you’re not a whole person unless you read enough science and look at science documentaries to understand why you exist in the first place.”
I guess that would mean if you don’t have cable (with the History Channel and Discovery as part of your package) you’re really caveman-level sub-par!
Dawkins is on today’s Science page cover of the New York Times. He says he much prefers to give public lectures in Alabama and Georgia (over places like San Francisco and New York) because the “religious unbelievers” come out of the woodwork by the thousands and give him raving applause. He says all they need is a little “heave.”
Mind you, this is the same guy who touted the possiblitity that life on Earth could be the result of advanced alien engineering, saying in a 2008 interview, "It could be that at some earlier time, somewhere in the universe, a civilization evolved, probably by some kind of Darwinian means, probably to a very high level of technology, and designed a form of life that they seeded onto perhaps this planet. Now, um, now that is a possibility, and an intriguing possibility. And I suppose it's possible that you might find evidence for that if you look at the details of biochemistry, molecular biology, you might find a signature of some sort of designer."
I'm guessing Dawkins has never examined the science behind Genesis 6:4: "There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown."
*****
Here are some of the excerpts from the NYT’s glowing profile, meant for us to admire the "brilliant" Briton they've deemed “arguably the world’s most influential evolutionary biologist”:
"Impatience With Religion
"Aren’t the theologian’s questions — Why are we here? Is there something larger than us? Why do we die? — central to the human project?
Professor Dawkins shakes his head before the question is out. His impatience with religion is palpable, almost wriggling alive inside him. Belief in the supernatural strikes him as incurious, which is perhaps the worst insult he can imagine.
“Religion teaches you to be satisfied with nonanswers,” he says. “It’s a sort of crime against childhood.”
"And please spare him talk of spiritualism, as if that were the only way to
meditate on the wonder of the universe. “If you look up at the Milky Way through the eyes of Carl Sagan, you get a feeling in your chest of something greater than yourself,” he says. “And it is. But it’s not supernatural.”
"Put that charge to Professor Dawkins and he more or less pleads guilty. To suggest he study theology seems akin to suggesting he study fairies. Nor is he convinced that the ecumenical Anglican, the moderate imam, the Catholic priest with the well-developed sense of irony, is religion’s truest representative.
“I’ve had perfectly wonderful conversations with Anglican bishops, and I rather suspect if you asked in a candid moment, they’d say they don’t believe in the virgin birth,” he says. “But for every one of them, four others would tell a child she’ll rot in hell for doubting.”
"That, he says, explains why he is writing a book for children. He wants to raise questions — Why is there a sun? What is an earthquake? What about rainbows? — and provide clever, rational answers. He has toyed with opening his own state-sponsored school, though under the British system he would have to come up with matching money.
"But it would not be a school for atheists. The idea horrifies him. A child should skip down an idiosyncratic intellectual path. “I am almost pathologically afraid of indoctrinating children,” he says. “It would be a ‘Think for Yourself Academy.’ ”
Human Gods
"After two hours of conversation, Professor Dawkins walks far afield. He talks of the possibility that we might co-evolve with computers, a silicon destiny. And he’s intrigued by the playful, even soul-stirring writings of Freeman Dyson, the theoretical physicist.
"In one essay, Professor Dyson casts millions of speculative years into the future. Our galaxy is dying and humans have evolved into something like bolts of superpowerful intelligent and moral energy.
Doesn’t that description sound an awful lot like God?
“Certainly,” Professor Dawkins replies. “It’s highly plausible that in the universe there are God-like creatures.”
"He raises his hand, just in case a reader thinks he’s gone around a religious bend. “It’s very important to understand that these Gods came into being by an explicable scientific progression of incremental evolution.”
"Could they be immortal? The professor shrugs.
“Probably not.” He smiles and adds, “But I wouldn’t want to be too dogmatic about that.”
I guess that would mean if you don’t have cable (with the History Channel and Discovery as part of your package) you’re really caveman-level sub-par!
Dawkins is on today’s Science page cover of the New York Times. He says he much prefers to give public lectures in Alabama and Georgia (over places like San Francisco and New York) because the “religious unbelievers” come out of the woodwork by the thousands and give him raving applause. He says all they need is a little “heave.”
Mind you, this is the same guy who touted the possiblitity that life on Earth could be the result of advanced alien engineering, saying in a 2008 interview, "It could be that at some earlier time, somewhere in the universe, a civilization evolved, probably by some kind of Darwinian means, probably to a very high level of technology, and designed a form of life that they seeded onto perhaps this planet. Now, um, now that is a possibility, and an intriguing possibility. And I suppose it's possible that you might find evidence for that if you look at the details of biochemistry, molecular biology, you might find a signature of some sort of designer."
I'm guessing Dawkins has never examined the science behind Genesis 6:4: "There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown."
*****
Here are some of the excerpts from the NYT’s glowing profile, meant for us to admire the "brilliant" Briton they've deemed “arguably the world’s most influential evolutionary biologist”:
"Impatience With Religion
"Aren’t the theologian’s questions — Why are we here? Is there something larger than us? Why do we die? — central to the human project?
Professor Dawkins shakes his head before the question is out. His impatience with religion is palpable, almost wriggling alive inside him. Belief in the supernatural strikes him as incurious, which is perhaps the worst insult he can imagine.
“Religion teaches you to be satisfied with nonanswers,” he says. “It’s a sort of crime against childhood.”
"And please spare him talk of spiritualism, as if that were the only way to
meditate on the wonder of the universe. “If you look up at the Milky Way through the eyes of Carl Sagan, you get a feeling in your chest of something greater than yourself,” he says. “And it is. But it’s not supernatural.”
"Put that charge to Professor Dawkins and he more or less pleads guilty. To suggest he study theology seems akin to suggesting he study fairies. Nor is he convinced that the ecumenical Anglican, the moderate imam, the Catholic priest with the well-developed sense of irony, is religion’s truest representative.
“I’ve had perfectly wonderful conversations with Anglican bishops, and I rather suspect if you asked in a candid moment, they’d say they don’t believe in the virgin birth,” he says. “But for every one of them, four others would tell a child she’ll rot in hell for doubting.”
"That, he says, explains why he is writing a book for children. He wants to raise questions — Why is there a sun? What is an earthquake? What about rainbows? — and provide clever, rational answers. He has toyed with opening his own state-sponsored school, though under the British system he would have to come up with matching money.
"But it would not be a school for atheists. The idea horrifies him. A child should skip down an idiosyncratic intellectual path. “I am almost pathologically afraid of indoctrinating children,” he says. “It would be a ‘Think for Yourself Academy.’ ”
Human Gods
"After two hours of conversation, Professor Dawkins walks far afield. He talks of the possibility that we might co-evolve with computers, a silicon destiny. And he’s intrigued by the playful, even soul-stirring writings of Freeman Dyson, the theoretical physicist.
"In one essay, Professor Dyson casts millions of speculative years into the future. Our galaxy is dying and humans have evolved into something like bolts of superpowerful intelligent and moral energy.
Doesn’t that description sound an awful lot like God?
“Certainly,” Professor Dawkins replies. “It’s highly plausible that in the universe there are God-like creatures.”
"He raises his hand, just in case a reader thinks he’s gone around a religious bend. “It’s very important to understand that these Gods came into being by an explicable scientific progression of incremental evolution.”
"Could they be immortal? The professor shrugs.
“Probably not.” He smiles and adds, “But I wouldn’t want to be too dogmatic about that.”
Saturday, September 17, 2011
O Thou who changest not
After watching Nick Terziski’s memorial service over Shorewood’s internet connection this afternoon, I’ve had the classic old hymn “Abide with me” running through my head.
This was a favorite of my dad’s who played nothing but old hymns in his doctor’s office and Cadillac, save for the patriotic tunes a la Kate Smith, Fred Waring, etc.
The only time that title phrase appears in the Bible is in Genesis 29:19: “And Laban said, It is better that I give her to thee, than that I should give her to another man: abide with me.”
Just imagine if you were someone who could never make that connection between the song lyric and the Bible verse because you had a “new” Bible that changed all the words?
In the NIV, for example, the same verse reads, “Laban said, “It’s better that I give her to you than to some other man. Stay here with me.” The NKJV is almost exactly the same.
The New Living Translation translates it to: “Agreed!” Laban replied. “I’d rather give her to you than to anyone else. Stay and work with me.”
*****
I have an 80 year-old resident at the elderly house who regularly collects discarded New York Times for me from neighborhood coffee shops. The one I flipped through this morning (dated Sept. 4) had an obituary for 96-year-old Rev. Eugene A. Nida. Here is an outtake from the article that is bound to get your KJV-only blood circulating:
Widely considered the father of modern Bible translation, Mr. Nida (pronounced NYE-duh) was for four decades the head of the Bible society’s translation program. He was known in particular for developing an approach to translation — and a method of training translators — that has influenced translators of religious and secular literature.
What defined Mr. Nida’s work was his insistence that Bible translations be
accessible to the people for whom they were intended. After joining the Bible society in 1943, he visited scores of countries, where he recruited native speakers and trained them as translators.
Previously, most Bible translations had been done by Western missionaries, who rarely had great familiarity with the local language. Not surprisingly, the word-for-word translations that resulted were often stiff, unpalatable and largely inaccessible.
“The genius of Nida was that he also developed a pedagogical approach,” Philip C. Stine, the author of a biography, “Let the Words Be Written: The Lasting Influence of Eugene A. Nida,” said in a telephone interview on Friday. “You could take people with very unsophisticated linguistic backgrounds and actually train them, using Nida’s methods.”
Drawing on linguistics, anthropology and communication science, Mr. Nida devised an approach to translation known as “dynamic equivalence.” (It was later called “functional equivalence.”)
Dynamic equivalence was intended to produce translations that read naturally, were rooted in the local idiom and yet retained fealty to the original Scripture. The approach, which took as its starting point Hebrew and Greek biblical texts, centered, quite literally, on the art of faithful adaptation.
Traversing the globe by plane, train and canoe, Mr. Nida set in motion the painstaking process of translating Scripture into more than 200 languages, among them Navajo; Tagalog and Ilocano, spoken in the Philippines; Quechua, an indigenous language of Peru; Hmong, spoken in Southeast Asia; and Inuktitut, an indigenous language of the Canadian Arctic.
Mr. Nida also played an active role in creating the Good News Bible, a colloquial English-language edition produced by the Bible society and published in two volumes — the New Testament in 1966, and the combined Old
and New Testaments in 1976.
Sometimes criticized for its linguistic simplicity (“Behold the fowls of the air,” for instance, became “Look at the birds flying around”), the Good News Bible was originally intended for speakers of English as a second language. Embraced in unanticipated droves by native English speakers, it has sold millions of copies.
Eugene Albert Nida was born in Oklahoma City on Nov. 11, 1914. He earned a bachelor’s degree in classics from the University of California, Los Angeles, followed by a master’s from the University of Southern California in New Testament Greek. In 1943, he earned a doctorate in linguistics from the University of Michigan and was also ordained as a minister.
One of his first tasks at the Bible society, as he recounted in a memoir, “Fascinated by Languages” (2003), was evaluating a translation of the Gospel of Mark into Yipounou, a language of Gabon, in West Africa.
In linguistics, Mr. Nida did important early work in morphology, which studies the internal architecture of words.
Mr. Nida’s first wife, Althea Sprague, died before him. His survivors include his second wife, Elena Fernandez-Miranda, and stepchildren. Information on other survivors was not available.
Translated back into English, some of the Bible passages produced using Mr. Nida’s method yield a resonant poetry. As The New York Times reported in a 1955 article about his work, “ ‘I am sorrowful’ gets a variety of translations for tribes within a small area of central Africa: ‘My eye is black,’ ‘My heart is rotten,’ ‘My stomach is heavy’ or ‘My liver is sick.’ ”
This was a favorite of my dad’s who played nothing but old hymns in his doctor’s office and Cadillac, save for the patriotic tunes a la Kate Smith, Fred Waring, etc.
The only time that title phrase appears in the Bible is in Genesis 29:19: “And Laban said, It is better that I give her to thee, than that I should give her to another man: abide with me.”
Just imagine if you were someone who could never make that connection between the song lyric and the Bible verse because you had a “new” Bible that changed all the words?
In the NIV, for example, the same verse reads, “Laban said, “It’s better that I give her to you than to some other man. Stay here with me.” The NKJV is almost exactly the same.
The New Living Translation translates it to: “Agreed!” Laban replied. “I’d rather give her to you than to anyone else. Stay and work with me.”
*****
I have an 80 year-old resident at the elderly house who regularly collects discarded New York Times for me from neighborhood coffee shops. The one I flipped through this morning (dated Sept. 4) had an obituary for 96-year-old Rev. Eugene A. Nida. Here is an outtake from the article that is bound to get your KJV-only blood circulating:
Widely considered the father of modern Bible translation, Mr. Nida (pronounced NYE-duh) was for four decades the head of the Bible society’s translation program. He was known in particular for developing an approach to translation — and a method of training translators — that has influenced translators of religious and secular literature.
What defined Mr. Nida’s work was his insistence that Bible translations be
accessible to the people for whom they were intended. After joining the Bible society in 1943, he visited scores of countries, where he recruited native speakers and trained them as translators.
Previously, most Bible translations had been done by Western missionaries, who rarely had great familiarity with the local language. Not surprisingly, the word-for-word translations that resulted were often stiff, unpalatable and largely inaccessible.
“The genius of Nida was that he also developed a pedagogical approach,” Philip C. Stine, the author of a biography, “Let the Words Be Written: The Lasting Influence of Eugene A. Nida,” said in a telephone interview on Friday. “You could take people with very unsophisticated linguistic backgrounds and actually train them, using Nida’s methods.”
Drawing on linguistics, anthropology and communication science, Mr. Nida devised an approach to translation known as “dynamic equivalence.” (It was later called “functional equivalence.”)
Dynamic equivalence was intended to produce translations that read naturally, were rooted in the local idiom and yet retained fealty to the original Scripture. The approach, which took as its starting point Hebrew and Greek biblical texts, centered, quite literally, on the art of faithful adaptation.
Traversing the globe by plane, train and canoe, Mr. Nida set in motion the painstaking process of translating Scripture into more than 200 languages, among them Navajo; Tagalog and Ilocano, spoken in the Philippines; Quechua, an indigenous language of Peru; Hmong, spoken in Southeast Asia; and Inuktitut, an indigenous language of the Canadian Arctic.
Mr. Nida also played an active role in creating the Good News Bible, a colloquial English-language edition produced by the Bible society and published in two volumes — the New Testament in 1966, and the combined Old
and New Testaments in 1976.
Sometimes criticized for its linguistic simplicity (“Behold the fowls of the air,” for instance, became “Look at the birds flying around”), the Good News Bible was originally intended for speakers of English as a second language. Embraced in unanticipated droves by native English speakers, it has sold millions of copies.
Eugene Albert Nida was born in Oklahoma City on Nov. 11, 1914. He earned a bachelor’s degree in classics from the University of California, Los Angeles, followed by a master’s from the University of Southern California in New Testament Greek. In 1943, he earned a doctorate in linguistics from the University of Michigan and was also ordained as a minister.
One of his first tasks at the Bible society, as he recounted in a memoir, “Fascinated by Languages” (2003), was evaluating a translation of the Gospel of Mark into Yipounou, a language of Gabon, in West Africa.
In linguistics, Mr. Nida did important early work in morphology, which studies the internal architecture of words.
Mr. Nida’s first wife, Althea Sprague, died before him. His survivors include his second wife, Elena Fernandez-Miranda, and stepchildren. Information on other survivors was not available.
Translated back into English, some of the Bible passages produced using Mr. Nida’s method yield a resonant poetry. As The New York Times reported in a 1955 article about his work, “ ‘I am sorrowful’ gets a variety of translations for tribes within a small area of central Africa: ‘My eye is black,’ ‘My heart is rotten,’ ‘My stomach is heavy’ or ‘My liver is sick.’ ”
Friday, September 16, 2011
Penny stock
Living and working in Manhattan after 9/11, I noticed how it was sort of like Pandora’s Box got opened that day. Crude, immoral activity suddenly came out of the woodwork. Displays of it appeared in store windows and newspaper ads, not to mention newspaper stories. The mentality seemed to be, “Nobody’s minding the hen house—everybody in charge is just focused on preventing terrorism so live and let live!” The forces of evil had a field day in the city.
*****
Rev. 6:6 says, “And I heard a voice in the midst of the four beasts say, A measure of wheat for a penny, and three measures of barley for a penny; and see thou hurt not the oil and the wine.”
Jordan explains, “Now you’d think ‘Boy, if I could get a loaf of bread for a penny, I’d like that because a penny’s not worth much anymore.’ But that’s not the type of penny being talked about here. The Bible sets up its own definitions and standards.
“A penny in the Bible was a demarcation of money back in Matthew 20 that represented a whole day’s wage. What a man worked for a whole day long, at the end of the day he was paid a penny.
“Enough to have a loaf of bread is going to take a day’s wage. That doesn’t represent depression; that represents inflation. But it represents tough times economically in connection with the Antichrist and the ‘last days’ and there’s tremendous financial difficulties that go on there.
“In Zechariah 8 is a passage that gets quoted a lot. 8:9 says, ‘Thus saith the LORD of hosts; Let your hands be strong, ye that hear in these days these words by the mouth of the prophets, which were in the day that the foundation of the house of the LORD of hosts was laid, that the temple might be built.’
“Zechariah is talking about the destruction of the temple in Israel and it’s being rebuilt, and what was happening there is a prophecy about what’s going to happen to Israel in the days ahead.
“In verse 8:9 is a description of the unemployment statistics in Israel before Israel was restored back to its kingdom and there’s no hire for a man. You couldn’t go out and get a job. There was no job to have. You couldn’t go and hire out your beast. All the commerce and employment was gone and that’s a recession.
“But God’s going to change things for Israel. Verse 11-13 says, ‘But now I will not be unto the residue of this people as in the former days, saith the LORD of hosts.
[12] For the seed shall be prosperous; the vine shall give her fruit, and the ground shall give her increase, and the heavens shall give their dew; and I will cause the remnant of this people to possess all these things.
[13] And it shall come to pass, that as ye were a curse among the heathen, O house of Judah, and house of Israel; so will I save you, and ye shall be a blessing: fear not, but let your hands be strong.’
“The blessing is not just a spiritual blessing; it’s a monetary blessing, it’s a prosperity blessing. It’s physical provisions and so forth for the nation.
“My point is God Himself has an economic policy and He has a plan whereby He’s going to take care of recessions and depressions and prosperity in one moment, and famine in another. God’s cure for that is when the Lord Jesus Christ comes back and establishes His kingdom on Planet Earth, He uses the nation Israel to be the nation He intended them to be; to lead the nations of the earth into prosperity.
“So one day all these economic cycles we’re going through will go away but until Jesus comes . . . things are going to get worse before they get better.
“It’s important to understand that even when God describes the kingdom, often He describes it in economic terms. Not just money, but the provisions—food, raiment, blessings, prosperity. It’s all kind of physical economic things.
“The Bible has a lot to say about money, folks. The Bible has a lot to say about economics. That is the use and movement of money. Moral decay in a nation or an individual always catches up with you in economic terms. Whether it’s in you as an individual or whether it’s in a nation as a whole, it always catches up with you.
“The tragedy of our day, when you think of our nation, is we’re witnessing,
at whatever age you are today, the fall of a great era in world history.
“There’s always been a contrast between what goes on in the culture and what the Bible says. I remember when I was young people were talking about how terrible the young people were and how we’re going to ‘hell in a hand basket’ and that you can’t see for the dust . . . well, Dear Abby had a column where she was quoting one of the sages about how bad things were getting and how awful it was going, and then when she got through she signed it Socrates. Now he was a Greek philosopher who lived before Christ and was describing the culture of his day.
“So there’s been a contrast between what goes on in the world and what the Scripture says the Christian life ought to be. But that contrast is far starker today; it’s far more numerous. It’s far more consequential. Far more threatening than in the past and nobody’s missing the effect of the sea change taking place—the deterioration of moral and spiritual values in our culture.”
*****
Rev. 6:6 says, “And I heard a voice in the midst of the four beasts say, A measure of wheat for a penny, and three measures of barley for a penny; and see thou hurt not the oil and the wine.”
Jordan explains, “Now you’d think ‘Boy, if I could get a loaf of bread for a penny, I’d like that because a penny’s not worth much anymore.’ But that’s not the type of penny being talked about here. The Bible sets up its own definitions and standards.
“A penny in the Bible was a demarcation of money back in Matthew 20 that represented a whole day’s wage. What a man worked for a whole day long, at the end of the day he was paid a penny.
“Enough to have a loaf of bread is going to take a day’s wage. That doesn’t represent depression; that represents inflation. But it represents tough times economically in connection with the Antichrist and the ‘last days’ and there’s tremendous financial difficulties that go on there.
“In Zechariah 8 is a passage that gets quoted a lot. 8:9 says, ‘Thus saith the LORD of hosts; Let your hands be strong, ye that hear in these days these words by the mouth of the prophets, which were in the day that the foundation of the house of the LORD of hosts was laid, that the temple might be built.’
“Zechariah is talking about the destruction of the temple in Israel and it’s being rebuilt, and what was happening there is a prophecy about what’s going to happen to Israel in the days ahead.
“In verse 8:9 is a description of the unemployment statistics in Israel before Israel was restored back to its kingdom and there’s no hire for a man. You couldn’t go out and get a job. There was no job to have. You couldn’t go and hire out your beast. All the commerce and employment was gone and that’s a recession.
“But God’s going to change things for Israel. Verse 11-13 says, ‘But now I will not be unto the residue of this people as in the former days, saith the LORD of hosts.
[12] For the seed shall be prosperous; the vine shall give her fruit, and the ground shall give her increase, and the heavens shall give their dew; and I will cause the remnant of this people to possess all these things.
[13] And it shall come to pass, that as ye were a curse among the heathen, O house of Judah, and house of Israel; so will I save you, and ye shall be a blessing: fear not, but let your hands be strong.’
“The blessing is not just a spiritual blessing; it’s a monetary blessing, it’s a prosperity blessing. It’s physical provisions and so forth for the nation.
“My point is God Himself has an economic policy and He has a plan whereby He’s going to take care of recessions and depressions and prosperity in one moment, and famine in another. God’s cure for that is when the Lord Jesus Christ comes back and establishes His kingdom on Planet Earth, He uses the nation Israel to be the nation He intended them to be; to lead the nations of the earth into prosperity.
“So one day all these economic cycles we’re going through will go away but until Jesus comes . . . things are going to get worse before they get better.
“It’s important to understand that even when God describes the kingdom, often He describes it in economic terms. Not just money, but the provisions—food, raiment, blessings, prosperity. It’s all kind of physical economic things.
“The Bible has a lot to say about money, folks. The Bible has a lot to say about economics. That is the use and movement of money. Moral decay in a nation or an individual always catches up with you in economic terms. Whether it’s in you as an individual or whether it’s in a nation as a whole, it always catches up with you.
“The tragedy of our day, when you think of our nation, is we’re witnessing,
at whatever age you are today, the fall of a great era in world history.
“There’s always been a contrast between what goes on in the culture and what the Bible says. I remember when I was young people were talking about how terrible the young people were and how we’re going to ‘hell in a hand basket’ and that you can’t see for the dust . . . well, Dear Abby had a column where she was quoting one of the sages about how bad things were getting and how awful it was going, and then when she got through she signed it Socrates. Now he was a Greek philosopher who lived before Christ and was describing the culture of his day.
“So there’s been a contrast between what goes on in the world and what the Scripture says the Christian life ought to be. But that contrast is far starker today; it’s far more numerous. It’s far more consequential. Far more threatening than in the past and nobody’s missing the effect of the sea change taking place—the deterioration of moral and spiritual values in our culture.”
Sunday, September 11, 2011
'I'll take Door #1' (paradise)
Malachi 4 says, “For, behold, the day cometh, that shall burn as an oven; and all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly, shall be stubble: and the day that cometh shall burn them up, saith the LORD of hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch.”
When something burns as an oven it burns very hot and He’s going to burn them up as stubble. Notice these people are physically burned up. Verse3 says, “And ye shall tread down the wicked; for they shall be ashes under the soles of your feet in the day that I shall do this, saith the LORD of hosts.”
Jordan explains, “This is not hell and the lake of fire. This is Jesus Christ’s coming at the end of the tribulation period where He pours His wrath out on some people fighting against Israel. Sometime people use these verses and say, ‘Well, this is a description of hell and in hell people burn up.’ But this is not hell; this is the Second Coming of Christ literally back to the earth to destroy His enemies and to ‘recompence tribulation on them that trouble you’ and He’s going to do it with a physical burning that just leaves ashes where they were.
“If you’re unsaved, when you get cast out of your body your soul goes to hell and stays there until it faces the Great White Throne Judgment and then it’s cast into the lake of fire. This verse isn’t talking about that but you see how people will take it and say, ‘Well, it says they’ll be burned up and ashes will be left so there’s no soul; you’re sleeping in the dust of the earth.’
“That thing in II Thessalonians 2 about the Antichrist who will ‘destroy with the brightness of His coming and with the breath of his mouth’ is a direct allusion back to the passage in Isaiah 30:27.
“You talk about earthquakes. This is going to be the Lord Himself ‘treading the winepress of the fierceness of the wrath of the Almighty God.’ Isaiah 30:33 says, ‘For Tophet is ordained of old; yea, for the king it is prepared; he hath made it deep and large: the pile thereof is fire and much wood; the breath of the LORD, like a stream of brimstone, doth kindle it.’ (Rev. 19)
“Boy, when you talk about Tophet people get all fired up about what that is. The word means a place of fire. The Greek word used in the New Testament for it is Gehenna. ‘Prepared’ means it’s prepared for the Antichrist. Actually it’s prepared for the devil and his angels.
“What I want you to see here is that when Christ comes back at the end of that tribulation to personally destroy Satan and his host, that is His Coming. Satan’s revealed with his angels in flaming fire. That takes place right there. That’s the personal pouring out of God’s wrath and indignation at the end of the 70th week, and that’s what Paul’s alluding to over there when he talks about God ‘recompencing tribulation.’
“What God’s going to place upon them is ultimately going to lead them through their following of the Antichrist right here to the place where He destroys the Antichrist and all those who join with him.
“He’s going to put that hook into their bridal (their jaws) and cause them to believe the Lie—send them a strong delusion that they might believe a lie. Why? Because they received not the love of the truth.
Deuteronomy 32:22 says, “For a fire is kindled in mine anger, and shall burn unto the lowest hell, and shall consume the earth with her increase, and set on fire the foundations of the mountains.”
“Look at that verse and take a dare for a minute to believe that verse means what it says. It’s not symbolic or a metaphor but just means what it says. In the center of the earth is hell. That verse says God is going to light a fire in His anger. He does that right there.
“Isaiah 30 told you that the breath of the Lord, like a stream of brimstone, is going to come out of His mouth, right there when He comes and it’s going to LIGHT Tophet.
Deuteronomy 32:22 reminds you of Jonah, who said the bars of the mountains compassed him about and when he died and went to hell it was like going down to the bottom of the mountains. Well, hell, if it’s in the center of the earth, would be down at the foundation of all that. If you’re up here, and you set a fire and consume the earth, you would burn out this opening that would take you right down into hell.
*****
“On the face of the earth there are a number of openings, hallways, shafts, whatever you want to call them. Passageways from the earth down into hell. Jesus talks about the GATES of hell in Matthew 16. Revelation 1 says He has the keys to death and hell.
“What do you do with a key? You open a door. Well, if there’s a door, there’s a doorway, and if there’s a doorway to get in and out of hell, open up a door and let people in. If you can open up the door and let some folks out, then there has to be a way from up here to get down there.
“Now, what’s happened in time is because this way is in the realm of a spirit, that shaft, or opening, is covered up with earth and your soul when you die isn’t going to need the earth to get out of the way for you to get down there!
“In time past in Moses’ day, this hell down here had two compartments to it. One is called paradise and the other’s called torment. After Jesus Christ is resurrected and ascends into heaven, He takes these people into the Paradise side and paradise is moved to the third heaven (Hebrews 12).
“Hell, Isaiah said, ‘hath enlarged herself.’ The torment side has taken it all over now. But back before the paradise side was transferred, there were two sections. That’s why I said, ‘Open the door and let some people out.’ You can’t get out of the torment side but you could get out of the paradise side.
“In that fire coming He’s going to kindle a fire that’s going to burn down to the lowest hell, taking all that earth out and melting it out.
“Nahum 1:3 says, ‘The LORD is slow to anger, and great in power, and will not at all acquit the wicked: the LORD hath his way in the whirlwind and in the storm, and the clouds are the dust of his feet.’ He’s making reference there to things in Scripture that tell you how He operates. Verse 5 says, ‘The mountains quake at him, and the hills melt, and the earth is burned at his presence, yea, the world, and all that dwell therein.’ Nahum is talking about His coming to punish and destroy Nineveh, one of the strongholds of the Antichrist in the ‘last days.’
“That fire is literally going to turn this part of the earth into molten lava and it’s just going to ooze on down and leave a hole in the earth. Now in the Kingdom, this shaft right here has a location right south of the Dead Sea. And people, when they come to Jerusalem from all over the earth to worship, they’re going to look at the souls of hell; literally look down in that shaft and see the torment!
“In Mark 9, he quotes the last couple of verses in Isaiah that also describe the mechanics of this. Verses 9:42-44 says, [42] And whosoever shall offend one of these little ones that believe in me, it is better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he were cast into the sea.
[43] And if thy hand offend thee, cut it off: it is better for thee to enter into life maimed, than having two hands to go into hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched:
[44] Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched. When you read that you say that’s like it was right there in front of them!’
“That verse, where it talks about ‘the worm dieth not and the fire’s not quenched,’ is an allusion to Isaiah 66:22. The fire not quenched is Tophet; that’s Gehenna. People say Gehenna is the garbage dump. It’s more than a garbage dump. It’s the garbage dump of the universe. Gehenna is that place where that shaft goes down in there and that thing gets opened up when Christ comes back at His Second Advent and people literally go out and view the damned.
“That’s why in Revelation He talks about those people who take the mark of the beast, the smoke of their torment ascendeth up day and night and people say, ‘Well, how can there be day and night in hell?’ But that verse is talking about day and night on the face of the earth up here in the Kingdom when people are seeing what’s going on down there, and day and night the smoke’s ascending up.”
(To be continued tomorrow…)
When something burns as an oven it burns very hot and He’s going to burn them up as stubble. Notice these people are physically burned up. Verse3 says, “And ye shall tread down the wicked; for they shall be ashes under the soles of your feet in the day that I shall do this, saith the LORD of hosts.”
Jordan explains, “This is not hell and the lake of fire. This is Jesus Christ’s coming at the end of the tribulation period where He pours His wrath out on some people fighting against Israel. Sometime people use these verses and say, ‘Well, this is a description of hell and in hell people burn up.’ But this is not hell; this is the Second Coming of Christ literally back to the earth to destroy His enemies and to ‘recompence tribulation on them that trouble you’ and He’s going to do it with a physical burning that just leaves ashes where they were.
“If you’re unsaved, when you get cast out of your body your soul goes to hell and stays there until it faces the Great White Throne Judgment and then it’s cast into the lake of fire. This verse isn’t talking about that but you see how people will take it and say, ‘Well, it says they’ll be burned up and ashes will be left so there’s no soul; you’re sleeping in the dust of the earth.’
“That thing in II Thessalonians 2 about the Antichrist who will ‘destroy with the brightness of His coming and with the breath of his mouth’ is a direct allusion back to the passage in Isaiah 30:27.
“You talk about earthquakes. This is going to be the Lord Himself ‘treading the winepress of the fierceness of the wrath of the Almighty God.’ Isaiah 30:33 says, ‘For Tophet is ordained of old; yea, for the king it is prepared; he hath made it deep and large: the pile thereof is fire and much wood; the breath of the LORD, like a stream of brimstone, doth kindle it.’ (Rev. 19)
“Boy, when you talk about Tophet people get all fired up about what that is. The word means a place of fire. The Greek word used in the New Testament for it is Gehenna. ‘Prepared’ means it’s prepared for the Antichrist. Actually it’s prepared for the devil and his angels.
“What I want you to see here is that when Christ comes back at the end of that tribulation to personally destroy Satan and his host, that is His Coming. Satan’s revealed with his angels in flaming fire. That takes place right there. That’s the personal pouring out of God’s wrath and indignation at the end of the 70th week, and that’s what Paul’s alluding to over there when he talks about God ‘recompencing tribulation.’
“What God’s going to place upon them is ultimately going to lead them through their following of the Antichrist right here to the place where He destroys the Antichrist and all those who join with him.
“He’s going to put that hook into their bridal (their jaws) and cause them to believe the Lie—send them a strong delusion that they might believe a lie. Why? Because they received not the love of the truth.
Deuteronomy 32:22 says, “For a fire is kindled in mine anger, and shall burn unto the lowest hell, and shall consume the earth with her increase, and set on fire the foundations of the mountains.”
“Look at that verse and take a dare for a minute to believe that verse means what it says. It’s not symbolic or a metaphor but just means what it says. In the center of the earth is hell. That verse says God is going to light a fire in His anger. He does that right there.
“Isaiah 30 told you that the breath of the Lord, like a stream of brimstone, is going to come out of His mouth, right there when He comes and it’s going to LIGHT Tophet.
Deuteronomy 32:22 reminds you of Jonah, who said the bars of the mountains compassed him about and when he died and went to hell it was like going down to the bottom of the mountains. Well, hell, if it’s in the center of the earth, would be down at the foundation of all that. If you’re up here, and you set a fire and consume the earth, you would burn out this opening that would take you right down into hell.
*****
“On the face of the earth there are a number of openings, hallways, shafts, whatever you want to call them. Passageways from the earth down into hell. Jesus talks about the GATES of hell in Matthew 16. Revelation 1 says He has the keys to death and hell.
“What do you do with a key? You open a door. Well, if there’s a door, there’s a doorway, and if there’s a doorway to get in and out of hell, open up a door and let people in. If you can open up the door and let some folks out, then there has to be a way from up here to get down there.
“Now, what’s happened in time is because this way is in the realm of a spirit, that shaft, or opening, is covered up with earth and your soul when you die isn’t going to need the earth to get out of the way for you to get down there!
“In time past in Moses’ day, this hell down here had two compartments to it. One is called paradise and the other’s called torment. After Jesus Christ is resurrected and ascends into heaven, He takes these people into the Paradise side and paradise is moved to the third heaven (Hebrews 12).
“Hell, Isaiah said, ‘hath enlarged herself.’ The torment side has taken it all over now. But back before the paradise side was transferred, there were two sections. That’s why I said, ‘Open the door and let some people out.’ You can’t get out of the torment side but you could get out of the paradise side.
“In that fire coming He’s going to kindle a fire that’s going to burn down to the lowest hell, taking all that earth out and melting it out.
“Nahum 1:3 says, ‘The LORD is slow to anger, and great in power, and will not at all acquit the wicked: the LORD hath his way in the whirlwind and in the storm, and the clouds are the dust of his feet.’ He’s making reference there to things in Scripture that tell you how He operates. Verse 5 says, ‘The mountains quake at him, and the hills melt, and the earth is burned at his presence, yea, the world, and all that dwell therein.’ Nahum is talking about His coming to punish and destroy Nineveh, one of the strongholds of the Antichrist in the ‘last days.’
“That fire is literally going to turn this part of the earth into molten lava and it’s just going to ooze on down and leave a hole in the earth. Now in the Kingdom, this shaft right here has a location right south of the Dead Sea. And people, when they come to Jerusalem from all over the earth to worship, they’re going to look at the souls of hell; literally look down in that shaft and see the torment!
“In Mark 9, he quotes the last couple of verses in Isaiah that also describe the mechanics of this. Verses 9:42-44 says, [42] And whosoever shall offend one of these little ones that believe in me, it is better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he were cast into the sea.
[43] And if thy hand offend thee, cut it off: it is better for thee to enter into life maimed, than having two hands to go into hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched:
[44] Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched. When you read that you say that’s like it was right there in front of them!’
“That verse, where it talks about ‘the worm dieth not and the fire’s not quenched,’ is an allusion to Isaiah 66:22. The fire not quenched is Tophet; that’s Gehenna. People say Gehenna is the garbage dump. It’s more than a garbage dump. It’s the garbage dump of the universe. Gehenna is that place where that shaft goes down in there and that thing gets opened up when Christ comes back at His Second Advent and people literally go out and view the damned.
“That’s why in Revelation He talks about those people who take the mark of the beast, the smoke of their torment ascendeth up day and night and people say, ‘Well, how can there be day and night in hell?’ But that verse is talking about day and night on the face of the earth up here in the Kingdom when people are seeing what’s going on down there, and day and night the smoke’s ascending up.”
(To be continued tomorrow…)
'I'll take Door No. 1' (paradise)
Malachi 4 says, “For, behold, the day cometh, that shall burn as an oven; and all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly, shall be stubble: and the day that cometh shall burn them up, saith the LORD of hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch.”
When something burns as an oven it burns very hot and He’s going to burn them up as stubble. Notice these people are physically burned up. Verse3 says, “And ye shall tread down the wicked; for they shall be ashes under the soles of your feet in the day that I shall do this, saith the LORD of hosts.”
Jordan explains, “This is not hell and the lake of fire. This is Jesus Christ’s coming at the end of the tribulation period where He pours His wrath out on some people fighting against Israel. Sometime people use these verses and say, ‘Well, this is a description of hell and in hell people burn up.’ But this is not hell; this is the Second Coming of Christ literally back to the earth to destroy His enemies and to ‘recompence tribulation on them that trouble you’ and He’s going to do it with a physical burning that just leaves ashes where they were.
“If you’re unsaved, when you get cast out of your body your soul goes to hell and stays there until it faces the Great White Throne Judgment and then it’s cast into the lake of fire. This verse isn’t talking about that but you see how people will take it and say, ‘Well, it says they’ll be burned up and ashes will be left so there’s no soul; you’re sleeping in the dust of the earth.’
“That thing in II Thessalonians 2 about the Antichrist who will ‘destroy with the brightness of His coming and with the breath of his mouth’ is a direct allusion back to the passage in Isaiah 30:27.
“You talk about earthquakes. This is going to be the Lord Himself ‘treading the winepress of the fierceness of the wrath of the Almighty God.’ Isaiah 30:33 says, ‘For Tophet is ordained of old; yea, for the king it is prepared; he hath made it deep and large: the pile thereof is fire and much wood; the breath of the LORD, like a stream of brimstone, doth kindle it.’ (Rev. 19)
“Boy, when you talk about Tophet people get all fired up about what that is. The word means a place of fire. The Greek word used in the New Testament for it is Gehenna. ‘Prepared’ means it’s prepared for the Antichrist. Actually it’s prepared for the devil and his angels.
“What I want you to see here is that when Christ comes back at the end of that tribulation to personally destroy Satan and his host, that is His Coming. Satan’s revealed with his angels in flaming fire. That takes place right there. That’s the personal pouring out of God’s wrath and indignation at the end of the 70th week, and that’s what Paul’s alluding to over there when he talks about God ‘recompencing tribulation.’
“What God’s going to place upon them is ultimately going to lead them through their following of the Antichrist right here to the place where He destroys the Antichrist and all those who join with him.
“He’s going to put that hook into their bridal (their jaws) and cause them to believe the Lie—send them a strong delusion that they might believe a lie. Why? Because they received not the love of the truth.
Deuteronomy 32:22 says, “For a fire is kindled in mine anger, and shall burn unto the lowest hell, and shall consume the earth with her increase, and set on fire the foundations of the mountains.”
“Look at that verse and take a dare for a minute to believe that verse means what it says. It’s not symbolic or a metaphor but just means what it says. In the center of the earth is hell. That verse says God is going to light a fire in His anger. He does that right there.
“Isaiah 30 told you that the breath of the Lord, like a stream of brimstone, is going to come out of His mouth, right there when He comes and it’s going to LIGHT Tophet.
Deuteronomy 32:22 reminds you of Jonah, who said the bars of the mountains compassed him about and when he died and went to hell it was like going down to the bottom of the mountains. Well, hell, if it’s in the center of the earth, would be down at the foundation of all that. If you’re up here, and you set a fire and consume the earth, you would burn out this opening that would take you right down into hell.
*****
“On the face of the earth there are a number of openings, hallways, shafts, whatever you want to call them. Passageways from the earth down into hell. Jesus talks about the GATES of hell in Matthew 16. Revelation 1 says He has the keys to death and hell.
“What do you do with a key? You open a door. Well, if there’s a door, there’s a doorway, and if there’s a doorway to get in and out of hell, open up a door and let people in. If you can open up the door and let some folks out, then there has to be a way from up here to get down there.
“Now, what’s happened in time is because this way is in the realm of a spirit, that shaft, or opening, is covered up with earth and your soul when you die isn’t going to need the earth to get out of the way for you to get down there!
“In time past in Moses’ day, this hell down here had two compartments to it. One is called paradise and the other’s called torment. After Jesus Christ is resurrected and ascends into heaven, He takes these people into the Paradise side and paradise is moved to the third heaven (Hebrews 12).
“Hell, Isaiah said, ‘hath enlarged herself.’ The torment side has taken it all over now. But back before the paradise side was transferred, there were two sections. That’s why I said, ‘Open the door and let some people out.’ You can’t get out of the torment side but you could get out of the paradise side.
“In that fire coming He’s going to kindle a fire that’s going to burn down to the lowest hell, taking all that earth out and melting it out.
“Nahum 1:3 says, ‘The LORD is slow to anger, and great in power, and will not at all acquit the wicked: the LORD hath his way in the whirlwind and in the storm, and the clouds are the dust of his feet.’ He’s making reference there to things in Scripture that tell you how He operates. Verse 5 says, ‘The mountains quake at him, and the hills melt, and the earth is burned at his presence, yea, the world, and all that dwell therein.’ Nahum is talking about His coming to punish and destroy Nineveh, one of the strongholds of the Antichrist in the ‘last days.’
“That fire is literally going to turn this part of the earth into molten lava and it’s just going to ooze on down and leave a hole in the earth. Now in the Kingdom, this shaft right here has a location right south of the Dead Sea. And people, when they come to Jerusalem from all over the earth to worship, they’re going to look at the souls of hell; literally look down in that shaft and see the torment!
“In Mark 9, he quotes the last couple of verses in Isaiah that also describe the mechanics of this. Verses 9:42-44 says, [42] And whosoever shall offend one of these little ones that believe in me, it is better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he were cast into the sea.
[43] And if thy hand offend thee, cut it off: it is better for thee to enter into life maimed, than having two hands to go into hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched:
[44] Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched. When you read that you say that’s like it was right there in front of them!’
“That verse, where it talks about ‘the worm dieth not and the fire’s not quenched,’ is an allusion to Isaiah 66:22. The fire not quenched is Tophet; that’s Gehenna. People say Gehenna is the garbage dump. It’s more than a garbage dump. It’s the garbage dump of the universe. Gehenna is that place where that shaft goes down in there and that thing gets opened up when Christ comes back at His Second Advent and people literally go out and view the damned.
“That’s why in Revelation He talks about those people who take the mark of the beast, the smoke of their torment ascendeth up day and night and people say, ‘Well, how can there be day and night in hell?’ But that verse is talking about day and night on the face of the earth up here in the Kingdom when people are seeing what’s going on down there, and day and night the smoke’s ascending up.”
(To be continued tomorrow…)
Tuesday, September 6, 2011
Over and over and over
Judges 3:7-9 says, “ And the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the LORD, and forgat the LORD their God, and served Baalim and the groves.
[8] Therefore the anger of the LORD was hot against Israel, and he sold them into the hand of Chushan-rishathaim king of Mesopotamia: and the children of Israel served Chushan-rishathaim eight years.
[9] And when the children of Israel cried unto the LORD, the LORD raised up a deliverer to the children of Israel, who delivered them, even Othniel the son of Kenaz, Caleb's younger brother.”
Jordan explains, “The cycle is they sin, they’re chastened, they cry to the Lord, they confess their problem and then God restores them just like Leviticus 26 says they could do. And they do it over and over and over.
“So He chastens them and puts them under servitude to this Gentile king of Mesopotamia. Then you get this deliverer. Verse 10 says, ‘And the Spirit of the LORD came upon him, and he judged Israel, and went out to war: and the LORD delivered Chushan-rishathaim king of Mesopotamia into his hand; and his hand prevailed against Chushan-rishathaim.’
“He delivers Israel from the judgment they were in and there’s a restoration. Verse 11 says, ‘And the land had rest forty years.’ The rest is the rest God had promised them in Canaan. By the way, the Canaan rest is a type of the Millennial Kingdom rest and they experience rest for 40 years.
“Verse 12 says, ‘And the children of Israel did evil again in the sight of the LORD: and the LORD strengthened Eglon the king of Moab against Israel, because they had done evil in the sight of the LORD.’ So after 40 years what do they do? They raise up a generation. You understand how that works?
“You learn the lesson, you live in the lesson, but you don’t pass the lesson along to the next generation. You go another 40 years and a new generation comes on the scene and you haven’t passed the lesson on to them and what do they do? You notice they don’t naturally serve the Lord. They naturally go out and serve the flesh and the religious system.”
*****
Judges 3: 13-17 reads, “And he gathered unto him the children of Ammon and Amalek, and went and smote Israel, and possessed the city of palm trees.
[14] So the children of Israel served Eglon the king of Moab eighteen years.
[15] But when the children of Israel cried unto the LORD, the LORD raised them up a deliverer, Ehud the son of Gera, a Benjamite, a man lefthanded: and by him the children of Israel sent a present unto Eglon the king of Moab.
[16] But Ehud made him a dagger which had two edges, of a cubit length; and he did gird it under his raiment upon his right thigh.
[17] And he brought the present unto Eglon king of Moab: and Eglon was a very fat man.”
Jordan explains, “There is this satanic policy of evil in the land there that’s working to constantly corrupt Israel and the Lord strengthened Eglon.
“Ehud is a left-handed man and he’s going to deliver Israel and God is going to use him and his cunning and his wisdom, even in his weakness of being the left-handed man, to deliver the nation Israel and the process by which it’s done. God begins to restore them.
“Verse 16 reminds me to say that as you go through the Book of Judges, while God is teaching Israel these lessons, there’s conflict in Judges between the satanic policy of evil to corrupt Israel and God putting Israel through these lessons to teach them not to go after other gods.
“The result of that is there are many things in the Book of Judges that doctrinally and dispensationally are prophetic pictures. Eglon is a type of the Antichrist. By the way, Eglon was a very fat man.
"Job 27, another reference to the Antichrist, talks about him being a fat fellow. The Antichrist is going to be about 40 pounds overweight when he shows up. That’s some of those little ditties you find scattered around in the Word of God.
“You remember back in Zechariah 11 that the Antichrist is going to be wounded with a sword. Verse 11:17 says, ‘Woe to the idol shepherd that leaveth the flock! the sword shall be upon his arm, and upon his right eye: his arm shall be clean dried up, and his right eye shall be utterly darkened.’
“If you’re going to whack somebody and you’re going to get his right eye, a right-handed fellow would swing at you and come across this way, but a left-handed guy would swing at you this way. The indication is, and this is how you learn things in your Bible, that when the Antichrist is hit with that sword, it’s going to be a left-handed man that hits him and wounds him with that wound unto death.
*****
“During reign of Deborah, you see Cisera is one of the main types of the Antichrist in the bible. You notice as you go down through chapter 5 and the battle, verse 4-5 says, ‘LORD, when thou wentest out of Seir, when thou marchedst out of the field of Edom, the earth trembled, and the heavens dropped, the clouds also dropped water (that’s the route of the Second Advent in Isaiah 63). The mountains melted from before the LORD, even that Sinai from before the LORD God of Israel (that didn’t happen in Exodus—that’s something that’s going to happen out in the future).’
Judges 9 is a parable given by Jotham about Abimelek and his winding up as a ruler over Israel. Verses 9:7-9 read, ‘And when they told it to Jotham, he went and stood in the top of mount Gerizim, and lifted up his voice, and cried, and said unto them, Hearken unto me, ye men of Shechem, that God may hearken unto you.[8] The trees went forth on a time to anoint a king over them; and they said unto the olive tree, Reign thou over us.
[9] But the olive tree said unto them, Should I leave my fatness, wherewith by me they honour God and man, and go to be promoted over the trees?’
“You’re going to see four trees in this passage that are pictures of the nation Israel. They represent different aspects of the life of Israel.
“You’ll see the trees here fail to take up their responsibility of ruling over the other trees (i.e., the other nations). All the nations of the earth, in the parable, come and say to the nation Israel, ‘As an olive tree, reign over us.’ It’s as though the Gentiles come to Israel and say, ‘Come and reign over us like God created you to do.’ What does the olive tree say? ‘Shall I leave my fatness?’
“The olive tree says, ‘No, I’m not going to go! I got mine! Look how wonderful I am! I’m not going!’ The olive tree is a type of the spiritual life of Israel. It’s a type of the position of covenant blessing, being on the right side of the middle wall of partition and being the nation that’s near to God.
“All the other nations are separated. For example, when Solomon builds the temple, the door into the holy place, into the presence of God in there--you know what they made it out of? Olive wood. Because that olive tree to Israel represents access. It represents the special set apart access; no
other nation has it.
“Here’s this position of spiritual privilege and they fail with it. So then the trees go over to the fig tree. The fig tree represents the religious life of the nation Israel. The vine represents the Israel as a nation; the national life. The vine tree won’t go either.
“The bramble tree represents Israel in idolatry; Israel under the curse. It represents Israel under the reign of the Antichrist. What you’re seeing is a picture prophetically of the future; historically of the satanic policy of evil of seeking to corrupt them at every point.
"What Satan’s policy wanted to do is to take Israel and destroy her in every area that God had established the nation for. They were to be His prophets, His priests and His kings and Satan’s going to destroy them in every capacity.”
[8] Therefore the anger of the LORD was hot against Israel, and he sold them into the hand of Chushan-rishathaim king of Mesopotamia: and the children of Israel served Chushan-rishathaim eight years.
[9] And when the children of Israel cried unto the LORD, the LORD raised up a deliverer to the children of Israel, who delivered them, even Othniel the son of Kenaz, Caleb's younger brother.”
Jordan explains, “The cycle is they sin, they’re chastened, they cry to the Lord, they confess their problem and then God restores them just like Leviticus 26 says they could do. And they do it over and over and over.
“So He chastens them and puts them under servitude to this Gentile king of Mesopotamia. Then you get this deliverer. Verse 10 says, ‘And the Spirit of the LORD came upon him, and he judged Israel, and went out to war: and the LORD delivered Chushan-rishathaim king of Mesopotamia into his hand; and his hand prevailed against Chushan-rishathaim.’
“He delivers Israel from the judgment they were in and there’s a restoration. Verse 11 says, ‘And the land had rest forty years.’ The rest is the rest God had promised them in Canaan. By the way, the Canaan rest is a type of the Millennial Kingdom rest and they experience rest for 40 years.
“Verse 12 says, ‘And the children of Israel did evil again in the sight of the LORD: and the LORD strengthened Eglon the king of Moab against Israel, because they had done evil in the sight of the LORD.’ So after 40 years what do they do? They raise up a generation. You understand how that works?
“You learn the lesson, you live in the lesson, but you don’t pass the lesson along to the next generation. You go another 40 years and a new generation comes on the scene and you haven’t passed the lesson on to them and what do they do? You notice they don’t naturally serve the Lord. They naturally go out and serve the flesh and the religious system.”
*****
Judges 3: 13-17 reads, “And he gathered unto him the children of Ammon and Amalek, and went and smote Israel, and possessed the city of palm trees.
[14] So the children of Israel served Eglon the king of Moab eighteen years.
[15] But when the children of Israel cried unto the LORD, the LORD raised them up a deliverer, Ehud the son of Gera, a Benjamite, a man lefthanded: and by him the children of Israel sent a present unto Eglon the king of Moab.
[16] But Ehud made him a dagger which had two edges, of a cubit length; and he did gird it under his raiment upon his right thigh.
[17] And he brought the present unto Eglon king of Moab: and Eglon was a very fat man.”
Jordan explains, “There is this satanic policy of evil in the land there that’s working to constantly corrupt Israel and the Lord strengthened Eglon.
“Ehud is a left-handed man and he’s going to deliver Israel and God is going to use him and his cunning and his wisdom, even in his weakness of being the left-handed man, to deliver the nation Israel and the process by which it’s done. God begins to restore them.
“Verse 16 reminds me to say that as you go through the Book of Judges, while God is teaching Israel these lessons, there’s conflict in Judges between the satanic policy of evil to corrupt Israel and God putting Israel through these lessons to teach them not to go after other gods.
“The result of that is there are many things in the Book of Judges that doctrinally and dispensationally are prophetic pictures. Eglon is a type of the Antichrist. By the way, Eglon was a very fat man.
"Job 27, another reference to the Antichrist, talks about him being a fat fellow. The Antichrist is going to be about 40 pounds overweight when he shows up. That’s some of those little ditties you find scattered around in the Word of God.
“You remember back in Zechariah 11 that the Antichrist is going to be wounded with a sword. Verse 11:17 says, ‘Woe to the idol shepherd that leaveth the flock! the sword shall be upon his arm, and upon his right eye: his arm shall be clean dried up, and his right eye shall be utterly darkened.’
“If you’re going to whack somebody and you’re going to get his right eye, a right-handed fellow would swing at you and come across this way, but a left-handed guy would swing at you this way. The indication is, and this is how you learn things in your Bible, that when the Antichrist is hit with that sword, it’s going to be a left-handed man that hits him and wounds him with that wound unto death.
*****
“During reign of Deborah, you see Cisera is one of the main types of the Antichrist in the bible. You notice as you go down through chapter 5 and the battle, verse 4-5 says, ‘LORD, when thou wentest out of Seir, when thou marchedst out of the field of Edom, the earth trembled, and the heavens dropped, the clouds also dropped water (that’s the route of the Second Advent in Isaiah 63). The mountains melted from before the LORD, even that Sinai from before the LORD God of Israel (that didn’t happen in Exodus—that’s something that’s going to happen out in the future).’
Judges 9 is a parable given by Jotham about Abimelek and his winding up as a ruler over Israel. Verses 9:7-9 read, ‘And when they told it to Jotham, he went and stood in the top of mount Gerizim, and lifted up his voice, and cried, and said unto them, Hearken unto me, ye men of Shechem, that God may hearken unto you.[8] The trees went forth on a time to anoint a king over them; and they said unto the olive tree, Reign thou over us.
[9] But the olive tree said unto them, Should I leave my fatness, wherewith by me they honour God and man, and go to be promoted over the trees?’
“You’re going to see four trees in this passage that are pictures of the nation Israel. They represent different aspects of the life of Israel.
“You’ll see the trees here fail to take up their responsibility of ruling over the other trees (i.e., the other nations). All the nations of the earth, in the parable, come and say to the nation Israel, ‘As an olive tree, reign over us.’ It’s as though the Gentiles come to Israel and say, ‘Come and reign over us like God created you to do.’ What does the olive tree say? ‘Shall I leave my fatness?’
“The olive tree says, ‘No, I’m not going to go! I got mine! Look how wonderful I am! I’m not going!’ The olive tree is a type of the spiritual life of Israel. It’s a type of the position of covenant blessing, being on the right side of the middle wall of partition and being the nation that’s near to God.
“All the other nations are separated. For example, when Solomon builds the temple, the door into the holy place, into the presence of God in there--you know what they made it out of? Olive wood. Because that olive tree to Israel represents access. It represents the special set apart access; no
other nation has it.
“Here’s this position of spiritual privilege and they fail with it. So then the trees go over to the fig tree. The fig tree represents the religious life of the nation Israel. The vine represents the Israel as a nation; the national life. The vine tree won’t go either.
“The bramble tree represents Israel in idolatry; Israel under the curse. It represents Israel under the reign of the Antichrist. What you’re seeing is a picture prophetically of the future; historically of the satanic policy of evil of seeking to corrupt them at every point.
"What Satan’s policy wanted to do is to take Israel and destroy her in every area that God had established the nation for. They were to be His prophets, His priests and His kings and Satan’s going to destroy them in every capacity.”
Sunday, September 4, 2011
No alibis to pretend
Hebrews 11 is the “by faith” synopsis of the Bible. God, the author of the book, delineates and commends the faith of Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, Rahab, Gedeon, Barak, Samson, Jephthae, David Samuel, “and of the prophets: [33] Who through faith subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions,
[34] Quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong, waxed valiant in fight, turned to flight the armies of the aliens.
[35] Women received their dead raised to life again: and others were tortured, not accepting deliverance; that they might obtain a better resurrection:
[36] And others had trial of cruel mockings and scourgings, yea, moreover of bonds and imprisonment:
[37] They were stoned, they were sawn asunder, were tempted, were slain with the sword: they wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins; being destitute, afflicted, tormented;
[38] (Of whom the world was not worthy:) they wandered in deserts, and in mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth.”
Jordan says, “In this passage in Hebrews 11 there are 11 things described, and all of them are positive achievements and they were done in order that these people might achieve a better resurrection.
“Notice the little parenthesis—‘Of whom the world was not worthy.’ Isn’t that an interesting little comment about these people? They were wandering around like a bunch of hunted wild animals and while He’s describing that destitute condition, He puts that little parenthesis in. They were wandering around like that because they were too good for the world. They didn’t have a place to fit in.
“You have seven negative reactions and you’re told it’s to get better things. When verse 35 talks about ‘others were tortured, not accepting deliverance; that they might obtain a better resurrection,’ that’s an interesting statement. That means they could have gotten out of it if they wanted to.
"The reason they endure this by faith—it doesn’t mean they were getting it in the neck because they couldn’t avoid it. They could have avoided it if they didn’t walk by faith—faith required them to accept the consequences.
“Each one of these people were told something to do. Noah was told to build an ark and so on. So the instructions they were given were different. There was one basic underlying hope and promise behind everything and that’s that issue in verse 35 of a better resurrection. The Old Testament saints, by the way, understood there was going to be a resurrection.
“In Job 19 he says, ‘And though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God.’ We’ve already studied that the Melchizedekian priesthood of Christ is an eternal priesthood. That is, it is a priesthood that provides eternal life and the basic issue is everlasting life.
“When you do away with the literal physical Israel and the kingdom their promised in Scripture, and you take all that and impute it to Gentiles, any system does that and says that in today’s Christians is fulfilled the promises God made them, you know that can’t be true because for a promise to be completed it has to be fulfilled, and when God promised them the land, either they get the land or He didn’t so what He said He’d do.
“The issue coming down through Hebrews 11 is that the way these people back there obtained a good report was by faith. That’s what He started out telling you in verse 2 that ‘by faith the elders obtained a good report.’
"Then He gives you his great list of all the elders, illustrating how they obtained the report through faith. They took God at His Word in spite of all these obstacles; in spite of all the circumstances and the human reasoning and all the rest to the contrary and He lists all that stuff in chapter 11 so He can say chapter 12:1 to you: ‘Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us.’
"That’s the issue that Hebrews 10-12, the practical section of Hebrews, is talking about. Are you going to endure on to the saving of your soul or are you going to draw back to perdition? And He says, ‘Look, seeing we are encompassed about by so great a cloud of witnesses.’ He says, ‘We’re encircled with this great cloud of witnesses so that we don’t have any alibis to pretend that the race can’t be run or that it isn’t winnable.’
“How do you know the race can be won? You got this great cloud of witnesses that did it! That endured! That didn’t draw back! That continued on and they didn’t even get a fulfillment of what they were hoping in.
“The only reason they wouldn’t run is because they’re weighted down, and that goes back into the Gospels with ‘the cares of this life’ and all that kind of stuff, or there’s sin in their life and they’d rather have the sin and the self-will. The passage is saying, ‘Lay that aside. Be like the elders and let’s run the race with patience. That’s the issue.’ ”
*****
Hebrews 10:35-36 says, “Cast not away therefore your confidence, which hath great recompence of reward.
[36] For ye have need of patience, that, after ye have done the will of God, ye might receive the promise.”
Jordan says, “The patience you’re going to need is to understand that after you’ve done the will of God right now then you’re going to receive the promise, so let me give you some illustrations of how that works. It’s faith that’s going to allow you to endure and not draw back and He gives you 40 verses of illustrations of the enduring capacity of faith.
“And then He comes to chapter 12 and makes the application. Hebrews 12:1-2 is sort of like Romans 12:1-2: ‘Here’s the point of the nitty-gritty-make-up-your-mind-let’s-get-down-to-it-and-make-the- decision here. And He uses three things to encourage these people to endurance. The first one was in chapter 10:37. The issue of the Second Advent. He is going to come. ‘You’re waiting on a sure thing,’ He tells them. Then He uses the ‘great cloud of witnesses,’ the elders in chapter 11 who illustrate and demonstrate faith endurance in spite of whatever the obstacles.
Hebrews 12:2 says, “Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.”
As Jordan explains, “He says you want to have a motivation to endure because the Lord’s going to come and you’re going to get the promise. There’s the illustration of the elders that demonstrate to you that you don’t have any alibi; you can endure. Faith will get there and the only way you’re going to do it is by looking to Jesus. That’s the whole issue in Hebrews.
“That’s what the Book of Hebrews has been doing since chapter 1:1--telling them, ‘Look to the provision that God has made for you in Christ.’ The only motivation that’s ever going to get Israel through the tribulation; the one thing that won’t fail them is for them to look for the provisions that God by His grace has made for them in the New Covenant that Jesus Christ made through His blood poured out at Calvary.”
[34] Quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong, waxed valiant in fight, turned to flight the armies of the aliens.
[35] Women received their dead raised to life again: and others were tortured, not accepting deliverance; that they might obtain a better resurrection:
[36] And others had trial of cruel mockings and scourgings, yea, moreover of bonds and imprisonment:
[37] They were stoned, they were sawn asunder, were tempted, were slain with the sword: they wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins; being destitute, afflicted, tormented;
[38] (Of whom the world was not worthy:) they wandered in deserts, and in mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth.”
Jordan says, “In this passage in Hebrews 11 there are 11 things described, and all of them are positive achievements and they were done in order that these people might achieve a better resurrection.
“Notice the little parenthesis—‘Of whom the world was not worthy.’ Isn’t that an interesting little comment about these people? They were wandering around like a bunch of hunted wild animals and while He’s describing that destitute condition, He puts that little parenthesis in. They were wandering around like that because they were too good for the world. They didn’t have a place to fit in.
“You have seven negative reactions and you’re told it’s to get better things. When verse 35 talks about ‘others were tortured, not accepting deliverance; that they might obtain a better resurrection,’ that’s an interesting statement. That means they could have gotten out of it if they wanted to.
"The reason they endure this by faith—it doesn’t mean they were getting it in the neck because they couldn’t avoid it. They could have avoided it if they didn’t walk by faith—faith required them to accept the consequences.
“Each one of these people were told something to do. Noah was told to build an ark and so on. So the instructions they were given were different. There was one basic underlying hope and promise behind everything and that’s that issue in verse 35 of a better resurrection. The Old Testament saints, by the way, understood there was going to be a resurrection.
“In Job 19 he says, ‘And though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God.’ We’ve already studied that the Melchizedekian priesthood of Christ is an eternal priesthood. That is, it is a priesthood that provides eternal life and the basic issue is everlasting life.
“When you do away with the literal physical Israel and the kingdom their promised in Scripture, and you take all that and impute it to Gentiles, any system does that and says that in today’s Christians is fulfilled the promises God made them, you know that can’t be true because for a promise to be completed it has to be fulfilled, and when God promised them the land, either they get the land or He didn’t so what He said He’d do.
“The issue coming down through Hebrews 11 is that the way these people back there obtained a good report was by faith. That’s what He started out telling you in verse 2 that ‘by faith the elders obtained a good report.’
"Then He gives you his great list of all the elders, illustrating how they obtained the report through faith. They took God at His Word in spite of all these obstacles; in spite of all the circumstances and the human reasoning and all the rest to the contrary and He lists all that stuff in chapter 11 so He can say chapter 12:1 to you: ‘Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us.’
"That’s the issue that Hebrews 10-12, the practical section of Hebrews, is talking about. Are you going to endure on to the saving of your soul or are you going to draw back to perdition? And He says, ‘Look, seeing we are encompassed about by so great a cloud of witnesses.’ He says, ‘We’re encircled with this great cloud of witnesses so that we don’t have any alibis to pretend that the race can’t be run or that it isn’t winnable.’
“How do you know the race can be won? You got this great cloud of witnesses that did it! That endured! That didn’t draw back! That continued on and they didn’t even get a fulfillment of what they were hoping in.
“The only reason they wouldn’t run is because they’re weighted down, and that goes back into the Gospels with ‘the cares of this life’ and all that kind of stuff, or there’s sin in their life and they’d rather have the sin and the self-will. The passage is saying, ‘Lay that aside. Be like the elders and let’s run the race with patience. That’s the issue.’ ”
*****
Hebrews 10:35-36 says, “Cast not away therefore your confidence, which hath great recompence of reward.
[36] For ye have need of patience, that, after ye have done the will of God, ye might receive the promise.”
Jordan says, “The patience you’re going to need is to understand that after you’ve done the will of God right now then you’re going to receive the promise, so let me give you some illustrations of how that works. It’s faith that’s going to allow you to endure and not draw back and He gives you 40 verses of illustrations of the enduring capacity of faith.
“And then He comes to chapter 12 and makes the application. Hebrews 12:1-2 is sort of like Romans 12:1-2: ‘Here’s the point of the nitty-gritty-make-up-your-mind-let’s-get-down-to-it-and-make-the- decision here. And He uses three things to encourage these people to endurance. The first one was in chapter 10:37. The issue of the Second Advent. He is going to come. ‘You’re waiting on a sure thing,’ He tells them. Then He uses the ‘great cloud of witnesses,’ the elders in chapter 11 who illustrate and demonstrate faith endurance in spite of whatever the obstacles.
Hebrews 12:2 says, “Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.”
As Jordan explains, “He says you want to have a motivation to endure because the Lord’s going to come and you’re going to get the promise. There’s the illustration of the elders that demonstrate to you that you don’t have any alibi; you can endure. Faith will get there and the only way you’re going to do it is by looking to Jesus. That’s the whole issue in Hebrews.
“That’s what the Book of Hebrews has been doing since chapter 1:1--telling them, ‘Look to the provision that God has made for you in Christ.’ The only motivation that’s ever going to get Israel through the tribulation; the one thing that won’t fail them is for them to look for the provisions that God by His grace has made for them in the New Covenant that Jesus Christ made through His blood poured out at Calvary.”
Thursday, September 1, 2011
Like them that dream
A Reuters news service headline story from Jerusalem two days ago told of “the hundreds of hideouts, ranging from just a few metres deep to seemingly unending labyrinths that are popular among Israeli archaeologists and adventurists.”
The article informs that these ancient subterranean mazes “are virtually unknown to foreigners--even if you go looking for them, as designed, they are easy to miss.”
"These tunnels are an amazing secret that tourists unfortunately don't know about," veteran guide Asael Lavi was quoted saying. "It's possible to spend an entire day or two crawling in the different systems and experience the fear, grief and even excitement that the rebels must have felt."
What the article didn’t mention is that there are many references in the Bible about how in the “last days” the believing remnant in Israel will hide out from their enemies in the caves and rocks.
A central them in the whole Bible is about God coming and bringing salvation out of Zion, returning His people back to their position of blessing.
Psalm 126 is a great preacher’s psalm (they especially love to preach out of verses 5 and 6) that starts out: “When the LORD turned again the captivity of Zion, we were like them that dream.
[2] Then was our mouth filled with laughter, and our tongue with singing: then said they among the heathen, The LORD hath done great things for them.
[3] The LORD hath done great things for us; whereof we are glad.
[4] Turn again our captivity, O LORD, as the streams in the south.”
Israel’s hope all along, and the thing they pray for and look for, is to have their captivity turned around into deliverance. God promises them this and what’s so fascinating is that every time you see them waiting on God’s promise, the Book of Job is there.
Jordan explains, “James 5 says that in the last days one of the things the little flock of Believers is going to do to edify themselves and teach themselves the patience they need to endure through the time of affliction is to teach the Book of Job. So when these passages in Psalms, Joel, Hosea, Zachariah, on and on, are being fulfilled in the last days, while they’re being fulfilled the teachers of Israel are going to be teaching them the Book of Job according to James 5:11.
“They are to understand the captivity they’re in, the things that are happening to them have an end, and they can be patient like Job was, suffering according to the will of God and committing the keeping of their souls to a faithful Creator. They would learn about that faithful Creator and what it means to them.
“When I talk to you about their being so much information in Job about creation (there’s more information about creation in Job and Proverbs than all the rest of the Bible!) I’m trying to say to you that book contains information that is going to equip that little flock in the last days to understand the purpose and trust the plan of a faithful Creator.
“Those books are about the heart of the believing remnant that are specifically going to be taught to them in those last days for their edification to keep their heart trusting the plan God has laid out for them in Isaiah to Malachi in the Prophets. Israel needs a heart that is willing to trust that plan; not just know it, but TRUST it!
“Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes and the Song of Solomon build into their heart an understanding of this one who has this plan that will be executed.
"This is what I Peter 4:17-19 says in one comment: ‘For the time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God: and if it first begin at us, what shall the end be of them that obey not the gospel of God?
[18] And if the righteous scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear?
[19] Wherefore let them that suffer according to the will of God commit the keeping of their souls to him in well doing, as unto a faithful Creator.’
“One of the most amazing passages, Ezekiel 36 . . . In Deuteronomy 30 it says that when God turns their captivity, He’s going to circumcise their heart and give them a new one. How’s He gonna do that? The New Covenant.”
*****
Ezekiel 36 promises, in part, “And ye shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers; and ye shall be my people, and I will be your God.
[29] I will also save you from all your uncleannesses: and I will call for the corn, and will increase it, and lay no famine upon you.
[30] And I will multiply the fruit of the tree, and the increase of the field, that ye shall receive no more reproach of famine among the heathen.”
Jordan says, “This land that was desolate and useless all of a sudden is going to spring forth like a rose garden, bear abundantly and be like the garden of Eden.
“It’s going to take a real change of heart for Israel to want to go have God give the Gentiles what He gave them, but that’s exactly what’s going to happen in the kingdom. God told Abraham, ‘I’m going to bless you and make you a blessing, and all the nations of the earth are going to be blessed in you.’
“God’s going to redeem Israel and put His new heart in them, but His heart wants not just Israel to be blessed, but everybody.
“He says He’s going to give Job twice as much and what He’s going to do for Israel in their kingdom is give them double the blessings. If you read earlier in Isaiah, He said He gives them double because He gave them double for their sins.”
*****
In Zechariah 9, a passage about the coming of the Messiah and the deliverance of Israel, verse 11-12 says, “As for thee also, by the blood of thy covenant I have sent forth thy prisoners out of the pit wherein is no water.
[12] Turn you to the strong hold, ye prisoners of hope: even to day do I declare that I will render double unto thee;. God tells Israel that when I deliver you out of the captivity into your blessings, I’m going to give you double.”
Jordan says, “You know what He does at the end of Job? You’ve heard of the ‘patience of Job’ and you’ve seen the end of the Lord. What does the Lord do at the end of Job? He turns Job’s captivity and puts a new heart in Job where he’s got a different attitude toward his friends than he had before, and now God gives him twice as much as He had before.
“Go back to Job 42 and watch what happened as soon as God did that. Verse 11 says, ‘Then came there unto him all his brethren, and all his sisters, and all they that had been of his acquaintance before, and did eat bread with him in his house: and they bemoaned him, and comforted him over all the evil that the LORD had brought upon him: every man also gave him a piece of money, and every one an earring of gold.’
“We’d never have time to go through all the verses in the Prophets about how the Gentiles are going to come and bless Israel, but all those acquaintances of Job--they wouldn’t have anything to do with him earlier.
“You ought to go back to Job 19 and read what he says about them: ‘All my buddies, all my friends, it was ‘Job who? Huh? Don’t know ya. Walk away.’ Even the house servants, his butler and his chauffeur, wouldn’t even acknowledge knowing him. You could expect that of a lawyer or something, but your chauffeur?! Your gardener?!
“And then he says, ‘My breath was a stranger to my wife.’ You got to get close to somebody to know what their breath is like. His wife left him. She took up the devil’s line and literally said to Job what Satan was saying to God that Job would say.
“Notice in that verse that his wife didn’t come back. He got back double everything else but his wife. Now that may have been a blessing in and of itself considering the kind of wife she turned out to be. But God didn’t restore curses to him and she was a source of the working of the satanic policy of evil in Job’s home.
“You go over and study 1 John and he tells this believing remnant how to know whether you’re in the true fellowship or not. How you’re really the Israel of God or you’re not. And he tells them how they could really know whether they had the Spirit of God working in them or whether they were phony.
“I John equips them to be able to know. II John says this issue of being able to discern the seducing policy of the Adversary has to be very carefully practiced in the home. III John says it has to be practiced in the ministry in the local church.
“And the two things he adds on to I John as appendixes, II and III John, don’t tell them how to do it but tells them WHERE to do it. People like to quote II John about separation, but that’s not about ecclesiastical separation; that’s about separation in a home, in a house, among a family. That’s what’s happening in Job’s house.”
The article informs that these ancient subterranean mazes “are virtually unknown to foreigners--even if you go looking for them, as designed, they are easy to miss.”
"These tunnels are an amazing secret that tourists unfortunately don't know about," veteran guide Asael Lavi was quoted saying. "It's possible to spend an entire day or two crawling in the different systems and experience the fear, grief and even excitement that the rebels must have felt."
What the article didn’t mention is that there are many references in the Bible about how in the “last days” the believing remnant in Israel will hide out from their enemies in the caves and rocks.
A central them in the whole Bible is about God coming and bringing salvation out of Zion, returning His people back to their position of blessing.
Psalm 126 is a great preacher’s psalm (they especially love to preach out of verses 5 and 6) that starts out: “When the LORD turned again the captivity of Zion, we were like them that dream.
[2] Then was our mouth filled with laughter, and our tongue with singing: then said they among the heathen, The LORD hath done great things for them.
[3] The LORD hath done great things for us; whereof we are glad.
[4] Turn again our captivity, O LORD, as the streams in the south.”
Israel’s hope all along, and the thing they pray for and look for, is to have their captivity turned around into deliverance. God promises them this and what’s so fascinating is that every time you see them waiting on God’s promise, the Book of Job is there.
Jordan explains, “James 5 says that in the last days one of the things the little flock of Believers is going to do to edify themselves and teach themselves the patience they need to endure through the time of affliction is to teach the Book of Job. So when these passages in Psalms, Joel, Hosea, Zachariah, on and on, are being fulfilled in the last days, while they’re being fulfilled the teachers of Israel are going to be teaching them the Book of Job according to James 5:11.
“They are to understand the captivity they’re in, the things that are happening to them have an end, and they can be patient like Job was, suffering according to the will of God and committing the keeping of their souls to a faithful Creator. They would learn about that faithful Creator and what it means to them.
“When I talk to you about their being so much information in Job about creation (there’s more information about creation in Job and Proverbs than all the rest of the Bible!) I’m trying to say to you that book contains information that is going to equip that little flock in the last days to understand the purpose and trust the plan of a faithful Creator.
“Those books are about the heart of the believing remnant that are specifically going to be taught to them in those last days for their edification to keep their heart trusting the plan God has laid out for them in Isaiah to Malachi in the Prophets. Israel needs a heart that is willing to trust that plan; not just know it, but TRUST it!
“Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes and the Song of Solomon build into their heart an understanding of this one who has this plan that will be executed.
"This is what I Peter 4:17-19 says in one comment: ‘For the time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God: and if it first begin at us, what shall the end be of them that obey not the gospel of God?
[18] And if the righteous scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear?
[19] Wherefore let them that suffer according to the will of God commit the keeping of their souls to him in well doing, as unto a faithful Creator.’
“One of the most amazing passages, Ezekiel 36 . . . In Deuteronomy 30 it says that when God turns their captivity, He’s going to circumcise their heart and give them a new one. How’s He gonna do that? The New Covenant.”
*****
Ezekiel 36 promises, in part, “And ye shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers; and ye shall be my people, and I will be your God.
[29] I will also save you from all your uncleannesses: and I will call for the corn, and will increase it, and lay no famine upon you.
[30] And I will multiply the fruit of the tree, and the increase of the field, that ye shall receive no more reproach of famine among the heathen.”
Jordan says, “This land that was desolate and useless all of a sudden is going to spring forth like a rose garden, bear abundantly and be like the garden of Eden.
“It’s going to take a real change of heart for Israel to want to go have God give the Gentiles what He gave them, but that’s exactly what’s going to happen in the kingdom. God told Abraham, ‘I’m going to bless you and make you a blessing, and all the nations of the earth are going to be blessed in you.’
“God’s going to redeem Israel and put His new heart in them, but His heart wants not just Israel to be blessed, but everybody.
“He says He’s going to give Job twice as much and what He’s going to do for Israel in their kingdom is give them double the blessings. If you read earlier in Isaiah, He said He gives them double because He gave them double for their sins.”
*****
In Zechariah 9, a passage about the coming of the Messiah and the deliverance of Israel, verse 11-12 says, “As for thee also, by the blood of thy covenant I have sent forth thy prisoners out of the pit wherein is no water.
[12] Turn you to the strong hold, ye prisoners of hope: even to day do I declare that I will render double unto thee;. God tells Israel that when I deliver you out of the captivity into your blessings, I’m going to give you double.”
Jordan says, “You know what He does at the end of Job? You’ve heard of the ‘patience of Job’ and you’ve seen the end of the Lord. What does the Lord do at the end of Job? He turns Job’s captivity and puts a new heart in Job where he’s got a different attitude toward his friends than he had before, and now God gives him twice as much as He had before.
“Go back to Job 42 and watch what happened as soon as God did that. Verse 11 says, ‘Then came there unto him all his brethren, and all his sisters, and all they that had been of his acquaintance before, and did eat bread with him in his house: and they bemoaned him, and comforted him over all the evil that the LORD had brought upon him: every man also gave him a piece of money, and every one an earring of gold.’
“We’d never have time to go through all the verses in the Prophets about how the Gentiles are going to come and bless Israel, but all those acquaintances of Job--they wouldn’t have anything to do with him earlier.
“You ought to go back to Job 19 and read what he says about them: ‘All my buddies, all my friends, it was ‘Job who? Huh? Don’t know ya. Walk away.’ Even the house servants, his butler and his chauffeur, wouldn’t even acknowledge knowing him. You could expect that of a lawyer or something, but your chauffeur?! Your gardener?!
“And then he says, ‘My breath was a stranger to my wife.’ You got to get close to somebody to know what their breath is like. His wife left him. She took up the devil’s line and literally said to Job what Satan was saying to God that Job would say.
“Notice in that verse that his wife didn’t come back. He got back double everything else but his wife. Now that may have been a blessing in and of itself considering the kind of wife she turned out to be. But God didn’t restore curses to him and she was a source of the working of the satanic policy of evil in Job’s home.
“You go over and study 1 John and he tells this believing remnant how to know whether you’re in the true fellowship or not. How you’re really the Israel of God or you’re not. And he tells them how they could really know whether they had the Spirit of God working in them or whether they were phony.
“I John equips them to be able to know. II John says this issue of being able to discern the seducing policy of the Adversary has to be very carefully practiced in the home. III John says it has to be practiced in the ministry in the local church.
“And the two things he adds on to I John as appendixes, II and III John, don’t tell them how to do it but tells them WHERE to do it. People like to quote II John about separation, but that’s not about ecclesiastical separation; that’s about separation in a home, in a house, among a family. That’s what’s happening in Job’s house.”
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