Jordan’s Christmas Day sermon, 2011:
“The idea of loving your neighbor is not something new. It’s not a new concept, but how do you do it? Jesus Christ’s going to put His spirit in them and His spirit is going to give them the capacity to fulfill the law. That’s what the new covenant does. It writes His spirit in them. The new commandment is a new covenant issue.
“Here’s a verse that ties the rag on the bush about that. Matthew 5:43. Jesus, in the Sermon on the Mount, is talking about this lifestyle of the citizens of His kingdom and one of the characteristics He demonstrates here is, ‘You’re going to have this spontaneous ability to live for one another.’
“It’s not going to be something you have to calculate; it’s just going to be the way life is. That’s the way the life in the godhead functions--instantly, spontaneously and forever.
“He said, ‘Look, the law said that, but I’m giving you a new standard to go by. I’m going to intensify this thing and I’m going to . . .’ How do you do that? ‘Well, I’m going to put my life into you—I’m going to write my law into you.’ James calls it the perfect law of liberty.
‘I’m going to take that thing and put it into you. How? By my spirit.’ The issue fundamentally is, whether it’s Israel or us, it’s got to be Israel in Christ and us in Christ and it’s got to be His life lived out through us because no matter whose other flesh we’re related to, or other identity we’re related to, we’re all related to Adam. We all have that spiritual disqualification that comes from Him that can only be rectified in the spiritual status that we get in the Lord Jesus Christ.
“Jesus Christ is fixing this moment, this evening, of this text, to go and surrender Himself. That’s why He takes these Apostles with Him when He leaves the Upper Room. He takes them all the way to the garden with Him in John 18 and they watch Him; they witness Him surrender in obedience.
“Peter comes to his defense in John 18:11. Paul says ‘He humbled Himself and was obedient unto the death of the Cross.’ He loves the Father and depends upon His Word and trusts Him and He draws from the resources of His Word. And He says, ‘Now that’s the life you’re going to have. Trust the Father’s Word. Trust what God’s plan is. Depend on it and draw from the resources that it gives you and you can be the people you’re chosen and created to be.’
“John 15:1. Now that’s an interesting verse because you need to kind of appreciate what He’s saying: ‘I am the true vine.’ When He says He’s the true vine, if you go back to Chapter one, He talks about how John was a light but I’m the true light. In chapter six He says that Moses gave the manna, the bread from heaven, but ‘I’m the true bread.’
“He’s not saying, ‘There’s the false one and I’m the correct one.’ He’s saying, ‘I’m the authentic REAL one. I’m the ultimate enduring reality. I’m what everything else pointed to and looked at. I’m the real deal and where the real vine is is me.’
“The vine tree in Scripture is one of four distinct trees used to represent the life of the nation Israel in four distinct ways. The vine tree looks at the nation as an earthly nation.
“The reason he used that here, I suppose, is exactly the point I’ve been trying to make, which is He’s now focusing on the disciples: ‘I’m going away! I’m leaving you here on the earth and you’re going to be my nation in the earth. But it’s not just any nation. I’m the true nation. You have to be in me to be the real Israel of God. I’m the true vine. My father is the husbandman.’
“Husbandry has to do with gardening. And the husbandman (and it’s interesting you have the husband and the wife); it’s interesting that God would use that terminology of a husband to describe the role that we ascribe to a husband.
“But a husbandman in the Scripture is someone who cultivates and cares for a garden. Sort of the caretaker. When I read this verse and I just, I was thinking this afternoon, you know . . .
“Dec. 25 is the time of the incarnation, time of the conception of Christ when God literally steps out of heaven into man’s earth and takes on our humanity. I was thinking about that in relation to verse 1.
“That’s saying that God the Father was the caretaker for the Lord Jesus Christ. When He’s the husbandman of the vine and Jesus said, ‘I’m the vine,’ He’s literally saying, ‘You know, I’m doing this stuff to do what my Father gave me to do. He gave me a commandment. And my Father is the one who is taking care of me who’s jealous over watching over me and my development; my growth.’
“Now there’s a verse back in Isaiah 53 that kind of alerts you to that. Isaiah 53:1. The Messiah’s going to grow up before Him. That is, the father is as a tender plant and as a root out of the dry ground.
"You see how that starts talking about Him being a tender plant and a root out of a dry ground? There’s that horticulture terminology. There’s the husbandman. And what’s the father do? He’s overseeing; he’s tending. He’s watching out for him and he watches out for his development.
“Matthew 1. Christ literally enters into a personal combat with Satan. When He’s then going to be smitten of God and have our sin placed on Him. When He goes through all the accusations and all the attempts to derail Him. He has that confidence that, ‘I’m doing what the Father told me to do. I’m just going to trust Him; depend on Him. He’s watching over me. He’s got it planned and I’ll trust Him.’
“When I think about that, to me, it’s one of the most staggering things with regard to how He humbled himself to do that. And that’s what exalts Him. Because He humbled Himself, Paul said, therefore God is highly exalted. But this stuff’s real.
“Matthew 1:18. His whole life He’s demonstrating this. It wasn’t hanky-panky; it was something miraculous. Luke 1. When that happens, ‘Voila! She’s pregnant!’ That speaks volumes about Joseph. Instead of thinking about himself and the shock and the horror and the hurt and the betrayal that he could have felt, he still looking out after her good.
“And he made those decisions before verse 20 took place. ‘But while he thought on these things.’ Things that are testing his mettle. God the Father wasn’t going to let His Son be raised by a man who didn’t have some character.
"‘Behold in a dream Joseph, Mary thy wife conceived.’ The Lord Jesus Christ was willing to come and become a babe, at this point even in just the womb of His mother, but he says, ‘My father is the husbandry. My father watches out for me.’
“After He’s born, the wise men come. All His life He’s got the Father watching over Him. Those verses back in Psalm 91 talk about God giving His angels charge over Him. Literally that’s talking about the Messiah.
“Matt. 3:16. I’ve pointed out to you when we’ve studied through Luke; in Luke 3 he says it a little differently. Matthew’s interested in the public pronouncement of the Father endorsing His Son: this is Him. But Luke says it in such a way where he wasn’t talking to the crowd. He says, ‘Thou art my beloved son.’
“In other words, what the Father does is He makes the public pronouncements so everyone knows, but He also puts His arms around His son and says, ‘You’re mine. You’re doing my will. You’re on my mission.’ They had that kind of a symbiotic relationship; that kind of an oneness.”
Monday, February 27, 2012
Thursday, February 23, 2012
A time to embrace
About the decade we’re in right now, Jordan said, “It’s an exciting time to live and serve and share the gospel because you’re going to see a world that’s going to listen as the world you live in has never listened. Largely it’s because people get real basic when all the bills get paid.
"Here’s Paul in prison. He’s down to where it’s basic. He says, ‘I’ve got this one thing that’s the key-- forgetting those things which are behind.’ And that’s not talking about forgetting Aunt Tilly’s toenail that got run over by a truck or the garbage disposal that broke down.
“You go back to verses 4-7 in Philippians 3 and see all those things that used to be gain; used to be what he counted in. Paul said, ‘I forgot all that. I’m not going to be putting my confidence in my resources.’
“That’s something you need to remember not to forget, because what you and I tend to do as we traverse through our Christian life is slide back into trusting our resources. One of the reasons is we talk to ourselves so much.
“If you talked to God as much as you talk to yourself, you’d probably depend on His resources at least, if not more, as much as you depend on yours. But you think it’s a chore to talk to God because that’s called prayer and, ‘I don’t have time to! Oh God!’ and you do the Tebow thing.”
"Here’s Paul in prison. He’s down to where it’s basic. He says, ‘I’ve got this one thing that’s the key-- forgetting those things which are behind.’ And that’s not talking about forgetting Aunt Tilly’s toenail that got run over by a truck or the garbage disposal that broke down.
“You go back to verses 4-7 in Philippians 3 and see all those things that used to be gain; used to be what he counted in. Paul said, ‘I forgot all that. I’m not going to be putting my confidence in my resources.’
“That’s something you need to remember not to forget, because what you and I tend to do as we traverse through our Christian life is slide back into trusting our resources. One of the reasons is we talk to ourselves so much.
“If you talked to God as much as you talk to yourself, you’d probably depend on His resources at least, if not more, as much as you depend on yours. But you think it’s a chore to talk to God because that’s called prayer and, ‘I don’t have time to! Oh God!’ and you do the Tebow thing.”
Tuesday, February 21, 2012
'Out of my mother's bowels . . . '
Tonight my mom and I will have another favorite meal—lobster tail with drawn butter (along with an avocado-laden salad, asparagus and a big baked potato with sour cream and butter).
Last night we had prime rib (left over from Christmas and being held in the freezer just for my return) put in the slow-cooker with carrots, onion and garlic and eaten with roasted fingerling potatoes (rosemary-and-thyme seasoned) and another big avocado salad and asparagus.
As hard as it is coping with my sister’s shocking demise last April, I find it even harder knowing my mom is so alone and fighting anxiety and depression when there’s no one at home except her and Murray (our Chocolate Lab). She relied so heavily on having my sister nearby and knowing that Rita and her family were a constant.
Now she hasn’t even talked to my niece outside of the two recent holidays. It’s hardly any better with my brother-in-law. I guess there’s just a lot of hard feelings on their part over the way everything ‘went down’ with my sister’s illness and her diagnosed brain injury. My mom doesn’t even know what it is.
The big struggle I have is how to be truly content in my day-to-day life knowing my mom is hurting, alone, without family and fighting for basic contentment as she grieves over losing the daughter she loved so dearly. It seems like an impossibility at times. After all, she is someone who resides in the far, far depths of my soul.
*****
A story that’s always been told about me is how on one Halloween eve when I was only 5, my dad took a bunch of us neighborhood kids around in his Cadillac to go trick-or-treating “in style.”
My mom stayed at home to answer the doorbell and she was absolutely floored when she opened the door one of the times it rang to find me standing on the stoop in my costume. She said, ‘Lisa, what are you doing here?!’ I answered, ‘I just wanted to make sure you were still here.’
That’s the kind of attachment I’ve always had with my mom. Life surely could not go on without her, or at least it doesn’t feel like it could.
*****
Paul starts out in Philippians 2, “1] If there be therefore any consolation in Christ, if any comfort of love, if any fellowship of the Spirit, if any bowels and mercies,
[2] Fulfil ye my joy, that ye be likeminded, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind.
Jordan says, “The Christian life is not rules and regulations and performances and if, ‘I see this happening—OOOH, that’s God working!’ Life starts out of, as Jesus Christ says, ‘the abundance of the heart his mouth speaketh.’ (Luke 6:45).
“Proverbs 4:23 says, ‘Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life.’ Your life proceeds forth out of something inside of you. The outward activities are just the expression of something that’s inside and this passage is talking about what’s inside that is to be working in and through you.
“Bowels and mercies. People say, ‘What’s that?’ Go back to chapter 1 and Paul’s already told you. He writes in verse 8, ‘For God is my record, how greatly I long after you all in the bowels of Jesus Christ.’ Obviously he’s using a figure of speech or a metaphor.
“You can easily find another place it’s used that will explain it to you. The bowels of something is the innermost recesses. Bowels of the cave; bowels of a ship.
“Isaiah 16:11 says, ‘Wherefore my bowels shall sound like an harp for Moab, and mine inward parts for Kir-haresh.’ He’s talking about, ‘I’m going to have some groaning way down in the depths of my inner man; my inward parts,’ and he’s not just talking about his physical anatomy; he’s talking about his soul.
“I John 3:17 is another place that helps you. ‘But whoso hath this world's good, and seeth his brother have need, and shutteth up his bowels of compassion from him, how dwelleth the love of God in him?’
“He’s talking about the innermost part of a person’s soul. The inward part. By the way, the issue about the bowels of compassion—that’s where compassion comes from.
“If there’s something that can go right down into the depths of your soul where life really comes from . . . is there any of that? It’s all in Christ. Now he says, ‘If all this identity and these things you have in Christ are true, here’s the mindset it’s going to produce.’
“Philippians 2:2 says, ‘Fulfil ye my joy, that ye be likeminded, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind.’ He’s saying, ‘Here’s the thing I’m trying to get done in the ministry.
Paul goes on, ‘Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory; but in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves.
[4] Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others.
[5] Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus:’
“ ‘In lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves’—that’s the whole key!
“By the way, verse 4 is a great verse to remind you you have to be careful when you read the bible. If you take that verse out of its context, and take it literally, you can see how that verse will get you into trouble!”
Last night we had prime rib (left over from Christmas and being held in the freezer just for my return) put in the slow-cooker with carrots, onion and garlic and eaten with roasted fingerling potatoes (rosemary-and-thyme seasoned) and another big avocado salad and asparagus.
As hard as it is coping with my sister’s shocking demise last April, I find it even harder knowing my mom is so alone and fighting anxiety and depression when there’s no one at home except her and Murray (our Chocolate Lab). She relied so heavily on having my sister nearby and knowing that Rita and her family were a constant.
Now she hasn’t even talked to my niece outside of the two recent holidays. It’s hardly any better with my brother-in-law. I guess there’s just a lot of hard feelings on their part over the way everything ‘went down’ with my sister’s illness and her diagnosed brain injury. My mom doesn’t even know what it is.
The big struggle I have is how to be truly content in my day-to-day life knowing my mom is hurting, alone, without family and fighting for basic contentment as she grieves over losing the daughter she loved so dearly. It seems like an impossibility at times. After all, she is someone who resides in the far, far depths of my soul.
*****
A story that’s always been told about me is how on one Halloween eve when I was only 5, my dad took a bunch of us neighborhood kids around in his Cadillac to go trick-or-treating “in style.”
My mom stayed at home to answer the doorbell and she was absolutely floored when she opened the door one of the times it rang to find me standing on the stoop in my costume. She said, ‘Lisa, what are you doing here?!’ I answered, ‘I just wanted to make sure you were still here.’
That’s the kind of attachment I’ve always had with my mom. Life surely could not go on without her, or at least it doesn’t feel like it could.
*****
Paul starts out in Philippians 2, “1] If there be therefore any consolation in Christ, if any comfort of love, if any fellowship of the Spirit, if any bowels and mercies,
[2] Fulfil ye my joy, that ye be likeminded, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind.
Jordan says, “The Christian life is not rules and regulations and performances and if, ‘I see this happening—OOOH, that’s God working!’ Life starts out of, as Jesus Christ says, ‘the abundance of the heart his mouth speaketh.’ (Luke 6:45).
“Proverbs 4:23 says, ‘Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life.’ Your life proceeds forth out of something inside of you. The outward activities are just the expression of something that’s inside and this passage is talking about what’s inside that is to be working in and through you.
“Bowels and mercies. People say, ‘What’s that?’ Go back to chapter 1 and Paul’s already told you. He writes in verse 8, ‘For God is my record, how greatly I long after you all in the bowels of Jesus Christ.’ Obviously he’s using a figure of speech or a metaphor.
“You can easily find another place it’s used that will explain it to you. The bowels of something is the innermost recesses. Bowels of the cave; bowels of a ship.
“Isaiah 16:11 says, ‘Wherefore my bowels shall sound like an harp for Moab, and mine inward parts for Kir-haresh.’ He’s talking about, ‘I’m going to have some groaning way down in the depths of my inner man; my inward parts,’ and he’s not just talking about his physical anatomy; he’s talking about his soul.
“I John 3:17 is another place that helps you. ‘But whoso hath this world's good, and seeth his brother have need, and shutteth up his bowels of compassion from him, how dwelleth the love of God in him?’
“He’s talking about the innermost part of a person’s soul. The inward part. By the way, the issue about the bowels of compassion—that’s where compassion comes from.
“If there’s something that can go right down into the depths of your soul where life really comes from . . . is there any of that? It’s all in Christ. Now he says, ‘If all this identity and these things you have in Christ are true, here’s the mindset it’s going to produce.’
“Philippians 2:2 says, ‘Fulfil ye my joy, that ye be likeminded, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind.’ He’s saying, ‘Here’s the thing I’m trying to get done in the ministry.
Paul goes on, ‘Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory; but in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves.
[4] Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others.
[5] Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus:’
“ ‘In lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves’—that’s the whole key!
“By the way, verse 4 is a great verse to remind you you have to be careful when you read the bible. If you take that verse out of its context, and take it literally, you can see how that verse will get you into trouble!”
Saturday, February 18, 2012
From the other side of the 'flood'
Right now I’m lying comfy under a luxurious comforter (with the electric blanket on 3) in my mom’s guest bedroom after a dramatic 24 hours. I came back from a work event last night to find my kitchen sinks coated with black gunk (the building is notorious for its horrible plumbing).
An hour later, after scrubbing them out, I heard a big, “Bloob, bloob, bloob,” and rushed over to the sinks to see them quickly filling up with water. I grabbed my biggest stock pot and started running pails of the greasy, dingy, sewery-type water around a corner and down the hallway to the toilet. If I hadn’t been there, the kitchen sinks would have surely flooded over a half-dozen times!
To think I was originally going to drive home to Ohio after five o’clock quitting time Friday until I learned of my boss’ desire to hold a meeting with a new volunteer group! Whew!
I didn’t sleep well at all last night knowing I might have another “flood,” and that I might not get the maintenance man’s help until Tuesday (after President’s Day), meaning I would be foolish to go ahead with my vacation plans.
I decided to collect up everything that was important from the floor (most especially the Persian rugs I inherited from my grandmother’s death) and put down bath towels (including ones I obtained from our furniture storage room that were donations for residents) and hope for the best.
I left my apartment at 8 this morning and called the property manager from the Indiana toll road at 10. She called back around 2 to tell me the problem was fixed and that my call averted a potential disaster due to a major pipe clog that was found as a result.
As soon as I got in the door at my mom’s (which used to be my grandmother’s) I broke down in tears, flooded once again with memories of my sister. Fortunately my mom came home within a half-hour of my arrival and my brother Murray smothered me with his big Lab frame and slobbering kisses.
Then we ordered Chinese from our favorite place (one that we used to go to as a family after church on Sunday from way back when I was only a toddler!).
Oh, it feels good to be all safe and snug—and dry! Write a new study article tomorrow.
An hour later, after scrubbing them out, I heard a big, “Bloob, bloob, bloob,” and rushed over to the sinks to see them quickly filling up with water. I grabbed my biggest stock pot and started running pails of the greasy, dingy, sewery-type water around a corner and down the hallway to the toilet. If I hadn’t been there, the kitchen sinks would have surely flooded over a half-dozen times!
To think I was originally going to drive home to Ohio after five o’clock quitting time Friday until I learned of my boss’ desire to hold a meeting with a new volunteer group! Whew!
I didn’t sleep well at all last night knowing I might have another “flood,” and that I might not get the maintenance man’s help until Tuesday (after President’s Day), meaning I would be foolish to go ahead with my vacation plans.
I decided to collect up everything that was important from the floor (most especially the Persian rugs I inherited from my grandmother’s death) and put down bath towels (including ones I obtained from our furniture storage room that were donations for residents) and hope for the best.
I left my apartment at 8 this morning and called the property manager from the Indiana toll road at 10. She called back around 2 to tell me the problem was fixed and that my call averted a potential disaster due to a major pipe clog that was found as a result.
As soon as I got in the door at my mom’s (which used to be my grandmother’s) I broke down in tears, flooded once again with memories of my sister. Fortunately my mom came home within a half-hour of my arrival and my brother Murray smothered me with his big Lab frame and slobbering kisses.
Then we ordered Chinese from our favorite place (one that we used to go to as a family after church on Sunday from way back when I was only a toddler!).
Oh, it feels good to be all safe and snug—and dry! Write a new study article tomorrow.
Thursday, February 16, 2012
Phenomenal experience of rest
“There’s a fascinating little prologue in Leviticus 12 that I want you to think about. Ephesians 1:9-11 says, ‘Having made known unto us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure which he hath purposed in himself:
[10] That in the dispensation of the fulness of times he might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth; even in him:
[11] In whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will.’
“There again is the inheritance issue. God has this plan and purpose He’s working out in His universe and you and I are going to have an inheritance. What is that inheritance? Verse 19-21 says it’s an inheritance in the government of the heavenly places up there.
“What’s He going to do? It’s going to be His inheritance (verse18). He’s going to inherit the heavenly places and you and I are going to inherit it in Him. So we get the inheritance in Christ when He gets His heavenly inheritance, we share in that. He’s admired in all them that believe; we’re glorified in Him and He’s glorified in us.
“That happens ‘in the dispensation of the fulness of times’ when He gathers together all things in heaven and earth. Now time is a reference to the functioning of creation. There’s a great deal of terminology that, as you think it through, it kind of gets a little confusing.
“I’ve often talked about time and eternity, and that’s a term you hear constantly. Sometimes we talk about how Jesus Christ left eternity and stepped into time. What you mean by that is He stepped out of the domain where God is, the dimension where He is, into creation. But the reality is there is time where God is when He’s just God.
“Time is the measure that you give to sequential events. If you have no time it would be like . . . time is really where there’s a sense in which it always exists or you can’t have any phenomenon of life.
“Well, the godhead have an eternity (a constant, never-ending existence) where there are things happening, so there’s a technical sense in which you would say, ‘It isn’t true to say there’s no time in heaven or eternity because how do you measure whatever you measure in the nanoseconds of eternity?’ You’re not trying to deny there’s a sequence of events.
“But when you start talking about creation, time takes on the dimension of events in creation and the difference between time and eternity is eternity has no beginning and no ending; it’s infinite. Time in creation, while it may not have an ending, it certainly had a beginning; a point at which, in the beginning, before which there weren’t any of whatever was after the beginning began.
“Philosophers just get it all wound up because, you know, Plato had ideas about this and reality and . . . there’s St. Augustine . . . and pretty soon you go, ‘Oh, man, I think I’ll just get a Dr. Pepper and eat a Moon Pie and go to bed!’
“ln Scripture time is associated with creation. The fullness is associated with bringing it to its ultimate conclusion. What is the phenomenal experience of creation ultimately for? Ultimately, why did God create a universe in which people would experience that universe? What’s the ultimate purpose of time?
“Isaiah is very clear. Psalms is very clear. Proverbs is very clear. God created the universe to have a place for Him to manifest Himself and dwell among a creation who would enter into His life; think like He thought and live for one another spontaneously like He lives and like the members of the godhead live for one another (in which He could share the glory of His life; experience it, rejoice in it, and glory in it).
“Well, that’s what happens out there when Christ becomes ‘the head of all things.’ We now know that the way He’s going to do that, the mystery of it, is He had the plan to do it in the heavens—the whole of creation and not just the earth.
“It’s the ‘dispensation of the fulness of time.’ So there’s a time element associated with all of this. In my mind I say, ‘I wonder what that time element is? How long is that supposed to be?’
“And you hear people say, ‘Well, He created the heaven and the earth in seven days.’ So why did He create it in seven days? Well, a day with the Lord is as a thousand years and a thousand years is as a day.
“The seventh day of creation is the day of rest in which He enjoys His rest; that is He worked for six days to accomplish this and the Sabbath day is the day in which the Lord enjoys His dwelling in His creation. When does He do that? He does that in the Millennium.
“So preachers have pointed out for millenniums that there’s six days of labor and then there’s that seventh day of rest and Hebrews 3 and 4 use the Sabbath in four very unique ways. One is the weekly Sabbath. One is the Sabbath in Canaan, which is described as ‘rest’ back in Psalms.
“One is the resting in the salvation that the Hebrews had, and one is using it to refer to the kingdom. Even Hebrews 4 picks up on the terminology that the kingdom, that 7,000th year, is that day of rest.
“Okay, now we see there are these 7,000 years of history in time. The seventh one will be that millennial kingdom and so you get all the people counting from the year 2,000 but that’s all nonsense because you got no idea where you are in the calendar! But in Scripture you see these patterns.
*****
“There’s a principle when you study prophecy, especially studying the Old Testament, one of the most important ways to describe dispensational Bible study to people is to point out the issue of progressive revelation.
“When you study dispensationalism, you’re studying a time line. As the time line goes on, people know more than they did before.
“The covenant Calvinist view is, for example, that all men in time past looked forward in faith to the Cross of Christ and they knew everything about the Crosswork that you and I know. They say Abel and Moses understood Jesus was going to die on the Cross for him. And you say, ‘Wait a minute, that’s not what the New Testament tells you! The 12 Apostles didn’t even know He was going to die! Well, if they didn’t know, how come these birds back yonder, 4,000 years before, knew it?! Somebody forget in the meantime?’
“In I Peter I, it says that the angels looked, when they made these prophecies like Isaiah 53, and it says they wrote it down and said, ‘Lord, what is that talking about?!’ and they didn’t know! ‘What’s He mean?!’ So you know they weren’t looking forward with an understanding of what now we look back and understand.
“You see, the idea that everybody’s saved exactly the same way--by looking forward or backward in faith to the same thing, believing Jesus is going to die on the Cross--is a denial of progressive revelation.
“Progressive revelation says there’s things back there they didn’t know that now we do know. The basis of dispensational truth is understanding the differences between that. Well, when you understand that principle, then the idea of typology becomes a fascinating subject to you.
“What happens with typology is you have things happen that you get over here, and you begin to understand something, and you’re able to look back at history back here and see how God did things, said things and taught things that at the time, you didn’t know what they meant but now you do know what they mean and can look back and see, ‘Oh, look! There’s a picture of this reality PRE-WRITTEN in the text!’
“In modern terminology we talk about prototypes. It’s a pre-picture of the reality that comes over here. A prototype demonstrates to you that whoever is writing this and organizing this, knows the future so when the reality comes, and it tells you what it is, He can say, ‘See, I had this planned all along. Look how I did that and look how I did this.’
“When you begin to think about it that way, you begin to look back into places like the book of Leviticus and the ceremonies that are performed. Colossians 2 says these things back here are a shadow of things to come.
“These things aren’t in the Bible just to fill up space. So there’s a fascinating one here in Leviticus 12 that is a prototype of a time schedule . . .”
(Editor’s note: To be continued tomorrow . . .)
[10] That in the dispensation of the fulness of times he might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth; even in him:
[11] In whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will.’
“There again is the inheritance issue. God has this plan and purpose He’s working out in His universe and you and I are going to have an inheritance. What is that inheritance? Verse 19-21 says it’s an inheritance in the government of the heavenly places up there.
“What’s He going to do? It’s going to be His inheritance (verse18). He’s going to inherit the heavenly places and you and I are going to inherit it in Him. So we get the inheritance in Christ when He gets His heavenly inheritance, we share in that. He’s admired in all them that believe; we’re glorified in Him and He’s glorified in us.
“That happens ‘in the dispensation of the fulness of times’ when He gathers together all things in heaven and earth. Now time is a reference to the functioning of creation. There’s a great deal of terminology that, as you think it through, it kind of gets a little confusing.
“I’ve often talked about time and eternity, and that’s a term you hear constantly. Sometimes we talk about how Jesus Christ left eternity and stepped into time. What you mean by that is He stepped out of the domain where God is, the dimension where He is, into creation. But the reality is there is time where God is when He’s just God.
“Time is the measure that you give to sequential events. If you have no time it would be like . . . time is really where there’s a sense in which it always exists or you can’t have any phenomenon of life.
“Well, the godhead have an eternity (a constant, never-ending existence) where there are things happening, so there’s a technical sense in which you would say, ‘It isn’t true to say there’s no time in heaven or eternity because how do you measure whatever you measure in the nanoseconds of eternity?’ You’re not trying to deny there’s a sequence of events.
“But when you start talking about creation, time takes on the dimension of events in creation and the difference between time and eternity is eternity has no beginning and no ending; it’s infinite. Time in creation, while it may not have an ending, it certainly had a beginning; a point at which, in the beginning, before which there weren’t any of whatever was after the beginning began.
“Philosophers just get it all wound up because, you know, Plato had ideas about this and reality and . . . there’s St. Augustine . . . and pretty soon you go, ‘Oh, man, I think I’ll just get a Dr. Pepper and eat a Moon Pie and go to bed!’
“ln Scripture time is associated with creation. The fullness is associated with bringing it to its ultimate conclusion. What is the phenomenal experience of creation ultimately for? Ultimately, why did God create a universe in which people would experience that universe? What’s the ultimate purpose of time?
“Isaiah is very clear. Psalms is very clear. Proverbs is very clear. God created the universe to have a place for Him to manifest Himself and dwell among a creation who would enter into His life; think like He thought and live for one another spontaneously like He lives and like the members of the godhead live for one another (in which He could share the glory of His life; experience it, rejoice in it, and glory in it).
“Well, that’s what happens out there when Christ becomes ‘the head of all things.’ We now know that the way He’s going to do that, the mystery of it, is He had the plan to do it in the heavens—the whole of creation and not just the earth.
“It’s the ‘dispensation of the fulness of time.’ So there’s a time element associated with all of this. In my mind I say, ‘I wonder what that time element is? How long is that supposed to be?’
“And you hear people say, ‘Well, He created the heaven and the earth in seven days.’ So why did He create it in seven days? Well, a day with the Lord is as a thousand years and a thousand years is as a day.
“The seventh day of creation is the day of rest in which He enjoys His rest; that is He worked for six days to accomplish this and the Sabbath day is the day in which the Lord enjoys His dwelling in His creation. When does He do that? He does that in the Millennium.
“So preachers have pointed out for millenniums that there’s six days of labor and then there’s that seventh day of rest and Hebrews 3 and 4 use the Sabbath in four very unique ways. One is the weekly Sabbath. One is the Sabbath in Canaan, which is described as ‘rest’ back in Psalms.
“One is the resting in the salvation that the Hebrews had, and one is using it to refer to the kingdom. Even Hebrews 4 picks up on the terminology that the kingdom, that 7,000th year, is that day of rest.
“Okay, now we see there are these 7,000 years of history in time. The seventh one will be that millennial kingdom and so you get all the people counting from the year 2,000 but that’s all nonsense because you got no idea where you are in the calendar! But in Scripture you see these patterns.
*****
“There’s a principle when you study prophecy, especially studying the Old Testament, one of the most important ways to describe dispensational Bible study to people is to point out the issue of progressive revelation.
“When you study dispensationalism, you’re studying a time line. As the time line goes on, people know more than they did before.
“The covenant Calvinist view is, for example, that all men in time past looked forward in faith to the Cross of Christ and they knew everything about the Crosswork that you and I know. They say Abel and Moses understood Jesus was going to die on the Cross for him. And you say, ‘Wait a minute, that’s not what the New Testament tells you! The 12 Apostles didn’t even know He was going to die! Well, if they didn’t know, how come these birds back yonder, 4,000 years before, knew it?! Somebody forget in the meantime?’
“In I Peter I, it says that the angels looked, when they made these prophecies like Isaiah 53, and it says they wrote it down and said, ‘Lord, what is that talking about?!’ and they didn’t know! ‘What’s He mean?!’ So you know they weren’t looking forward with an understanding of what now we look back and understand.
“You see, the idea that everybody’s saved exactly the same way--by looking forward or backward in faith to the same thing, believing Jesus is going to die on the Cross--is a denial of progressive revelation.
“Progressive revelation says there’s things back there they didn’t know that now we do know. The basis of dispensational truth is understanding the differences between that. Well, when you understand that principle, then the idea of typology becomes a fascinating subject to you.
“What happens with typology is you have things happen that you get over here, and you begin to understand something, and you’re able to look back at history back here and see how God did things, said things and taught things that at the time, you didn’t know what they meant but now you do know what they mean and can look back and see, ‘Oh, look! There’s a picture of this reality PRE-WRITTEN in the text!’
“In modern terminology we talk about prototypes. It’s a pre-picture of the reality that comes over here. A prototype demonstrates to you that whoever is writing this and organizing this, knows the future so when the reality comes, and it tells you what it is, He can say, ‘See, I had this planned all along. Look how I did that and look how I did this.’
“When you begin to think about it that way, you begin to look back into places like the book of Leviticus and the ceremonies that are performed. Colossians 2 says these things back here are a shadow of things to come.
“These things aren’t in the Bible just to fill up space. So there’s a fascinating one here in Leviticus 12 that is a prototype of a time schedule . . .”
(Editor’s note: To be continued tomorrow . . .)
Tuesday, February 14, 2012
Branches to the Vine
This is a Valentine’s Day to remember. I’ve been out sick from work both yesterday and today. Yesterday was about sleeping and today was about old romance movies playing on local stations all day long.
Fortunately, I’m feeling tons better after a big malaise that came on me suddenly Sunday night. So, back in business and here’s some stuff in honor of the holiday for my married readers out there:
Jesus Christ says to His apostles in John 15: 13-15, “13] Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. [14] Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you.[15] Henceforth I call you not servants; for the servant knoweth not what his lord doeth: but I have called you friends; for all things that I have heard of my Father I have made known unto you.”
Jordan explains, “Jesus is talking to people who entered into an understanding of what Christ was doing and were doing what they were doing because they were his friends.
“I don’t know how you would define a friend. I ask people, ‘When you talk about someone as your friend, exactly what does that mean?’ Proverbs says, ‘A man that hath friends must shew himself friendly: and there is a friend that sticketh closer than a brother.’ Two verses later is the verse, ‘A man that hath friends must shew himself friendly: and there is a friend that sticketh closer than a brother.’
“I think the greatest definition I know of is found in Deuteronomy 13:6: ‘If thy brother, the son of thy mother, or thy son, or thy daughter, or the wife of thy bosom, or thy friend, which is as thine own soul, entice thee secretly, saying, Let us go and serve other gods, which thou hast not known, thou, nor thy fathers.’
“This is one of these verses in the Bible where you find a definition where the verse isn’t focusing on doing that—it just kind of does it for you in that casual assumption kind of a way which shows more power to the definition because it’s not trying to press a point; it’s just, ‘This is the assumption of what a friend is in the Bible.’
“He puts a little appositive in there—that is, a statement that defines what a friend is. And that friend is described as ‘which is as thine own soul.’ People have taken that verse and we have a term we use in the culture for it called ‘soul mate.’
“Most people when they say that we find out they’re talking about the person they want to get married to. Someone who is your friend is someone whose soul is in oneness with yours.
“When the Lord Jesus Christ said His joy was to do the will of His Father (‘My meat is to do the will of him who sent me’) the thing that gives me strength and sustenance and makes my life work, Jesus said, is to do the will of my Father.
“The Lord Jesus Christ understood that that meant more than just in rote doing what He said. As an abstract analogy, a son begins to understand the big picture of his father’s plan and buys into it and a son does WILLINGLY what he is required to do as a child.
“Jeremiah 9:23 says, ‘Thus saith the LORD, Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, neither let the mighty man glory in his might, let not the rich man glory in his riches:’
“You want to rejoice in something, God says, rejoice in that you understand me and what I delight in! And you come to the place that you’re as delighted about what I’m delighted in; that what I’m zealous about, you’re zealous about. You think like I think in the Big Picture and it’s no longer, ‘I’m just doing this commandment because He said to do it and if I don’t do it, He’s going to whack me!’ It’s, ‘I understand why it’s this way—I buy into the program and I don’t just buy into it, understand it and know it, it’s a good deal! It’s a good thing and I delight in it!’
“Now that’s what Jesus did when He came. Psalm 40:6 (‘Sacrifice and offering thou didst not desire; mine ears hast thou opened: burnt offering and sin offering hast thou not required’) is the passage quoted over in Hebrews 10:
“That’s the way a son works. That’s the way a friend works. When Deuteronomy says a friend is as one who is as thine own soul, that means they’ve come to understand what’s in your heart. They’ve bought into it and they’ve come to delight in it the same way you delight in it.
“Jesus says to these apostles, ‘You are my friends.’ Do you know the first person in the Bible called a friend of God was Abraham?
*****
James 2:21 says, “Was not Abraham our father justified by works, when he had offered Isaac his son upon the altar?”
Jordan explains, “It isn’t the work for works sake. It’s the works because you’ve bought into and understand what God’s doing. It’s the works produced by faith in the verses and the truth, and it’s the outworking of God’s life in Believers.
“It’s always God’s Word working through His people to produce the fruit. ‘And the scripture was fulfilled which saith, Abraham believed God, and it was imputed unto him for righteousness: and he was called the Friend of God.
[24] Ye see then how that by works a man is justified, and not by faith only,’
“What began back there gets finished over here. And he was called ‘the friend of God.’ Now he’s called the friend of God. That passage is in II Chronicles 20 and Isaiah 41. Abraham was called this because he came to the place where he understood and bought into and lived out, delighted in what the Father delighted in.
“Likewise, these apostles, the night before Christ dies, He takes them aside to say: ‘I’m going to go die. I’m going to die for you. You’re my friends. You’re the ones who I’ve . . . ‘
“Verse 15 says, ‘Henceforth I call you not servants; for the servant knoweth not what his lord doeth: but I have called you friends; for all things that I have heard of my Father I have made known unto you.’
“Just like my Father has revealed all these things to me, I’ve revealed them to you. I’ve entrusted the deposit the Father gave me with you. Just as I’ve learned what the Father is doing and I’m delighting in it, I’m giving it to you to delight in! You’re my friends. You’re as mine own soul. So I’m not going to call you servants. I’m going to call you friends because I’ve made you my friends. You’ve not chosen me but I’ve chosen you and ordained you that you should go and bring forth fruit and that your fruit should remain.’
“That goes back to chapter 14 where we’re talking about this permanent nature in the New Covenant that comes in, and now they’re going to have this permanent indwelling of the Holy Spirit, this permanent heart-writing of the law, this permanent working.
“It’s not going to be temporary anymore. It’s not going to be this David stuff back there in Psalm 51 where he says, ‘Don’t take it away from me,’ afraid that it would be. Or Saul where he does lose it or Samson where he loses it and gets it back. It’s not going to be all of that. Now there’s going to be this permanent thing. He’s going to finish the task with Israel.
“They’re going buy into the program so fully they’re going to know what’s in line with His will. They’re going to delight in it so fully that when they talk to the Father about it, it will be just like Christ talking to the Father and it will be done. This is high ground these guys are being put on.”
*****
The key to dispensationalism understanding is the reader is on a time line where, as time goes on in the Bible, people know more than they did before. It’s called “progressive revelation.”
Psalm 42 is a classic psalm with its heading, “To the chief Musician, Maschil, for the sons of Korah.” This means it was written for the head choir director; the top guy.
Jordan says, “It’s a very important thing. That term Maschil alerts you to the fact that this psalm is a psalm designed for its teaching and edification purposes. The term Maschil means to teach or to educate.
“This is a psalm designed not just to encourage, and not just to comfort, and not just to exhort, but to edify. To give instruction. And when it says ‘a song of loves,’ come over to the Song of Solomon and Isaiah 5. In the Bible there are three of these types of psalms.
“Isaiah 5:1 says, ‘Now will I sing to my wellbeloved a song of my beloved touching his vineyard. My wellbeloved hath a vineyard in a very fruitful hill.’
“ In other words this is a love song that God sings with regard, and concerning His purpose, for the nation Israel. The vineyard here is the nation Israel. Verse 7 says, ‘For the vineyard of the LORD of hosts is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah his pleasant plant: and he looked for judgment, but behold oppression; for righteousness, but behold a cry.’
“Song of Solomon verse 1 says, ‘The song of songs, which is Solomon's.’ When it says this is ‘the song of songs,’ this is the top, most important the supreme song. It’s the song of all the songs of Solomon. And of course it’s a song about the little flock’s loyalty to her beloved and her resistance of the seduction policy of the Adversary to seduce her away from her husband.
“Psalm 45 is the third one. These songs are designed to demonstrate the purpose God has in the nation Israel and the special love relationship and manifestation of His love in relationship for them.
“Psalm 42 begins the second book of the psalms and it deals with the Messiah as Israel’s Deliverer. The first set deals with Israel’s Redeemer. Psalm 42-44 talk about the NEED for Israel to have a Deliverer and they pray. Literally those songs are praying and seeking for, and panting after, as Psalm 42 says, a Deliverer.
“Well, Psalm 45 here comes the King and it’s ‘the Deliverer is here,’ and if you wanted to title this song I guess you’d call it ‘the marriage psalm.’ ”
Fortunately, I’m feeling tons better after a big malaise that came on me suddenly Sunday night. So, back in business and here’s some stuff in honor of the holiday for my married readers out there:
Jesus Christ says to His apostles in John 15: 13-15, “13] Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. [14] Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you.[15] Henceforth I call you not servants; for the servant knoweth not what his lord doeth: but I have called you friends; for all things that I have heard of my Father I have made known unto you.”
Jordan explains, “Jesus is talking to people who entered into an understanding of what Christ was doing and were doing what they were doing because they were his friends.
“I don’t know how you would define a friend. I ask people, ‘When you talk about someone as your friend, exactly what does that mean?’ Proverbs says, ‘A man that hath friends must shew himself friendly: and there is a friend that sticketh closer than a brother.’ Two verses later is the verse, ‘A man that hath friends must shew himself friendly: and there is a friend that sticketh closer than a brother.’
“I think the greatest definition I know of is found in Deuteronomy 13:6: ‘If thy brother, the son of thy mother, or thy son, or thy daughter, or the wife of thy bosom, or thy friend, which is as thine own soul, entice thee secretly, saying, Let us go and serve other gods, which thou hast not known, thou, nor thy fathers.’
“This is one of these verses in the Bible where you find a definition where the verse isn’t focusing on doing that—it just kind of does it for you in that casual assumption kind of a way which shows more power to the definition because it’s not trying to press a point; it’s just, ‘This is the assumption of what a friend is in the Bible.’
“He puts a little appositive in there—that is, a statement that defines what a friend is. And that friend is described as ‘which is as thine own soul.’ People have taken that verse and we have a term we use in the culture for it called ‘soul mate.’
“Most people when they say that we find out they’re talking about the person they want to get married to. Someone who is your friend is someone whose soul is in oneness with yours.
“When the Lord Jesus Christ said His joy was to do the will of His Father (‘My meat is to do the will of him who sent me’) the thing that gives me strength and sustenance and makes my life work, Jesus said, is to do the will of my Father.
“The Lord Jesus Christ understood that that meant more than just in rote doing what He said. As an abstract analogy, a son begins to understand the big picture of his father’s plan and buys into it and a son does WILLINGLY what he is required to do as a child.
“Jeremiah 9:23 says, ‘Thus saith the LORD, Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, neither let the mighty man glory in his might, let not the rich man glory in his riches:’
“You want to rejoice in something, God says, rejoice in that you understand me and what I delight in! And you come to the place that you’re as delighted about what I’m delighted in; that what I’m zealous about, you’re zealous about. You think like I think in the Big Picture and it’s no longer, ‘I’m just doing this commandment because He said to do it and if I don’t do it, He’s going to whack me!’ It’s, ‘I understand why it’s this way—I buy into the program and I don’t just buy into it, understand it and know it, it’s a good deal! It’s a good thing and I delight in it!’
“Now that’s what Jesus did when He came. Psalm 40:6 (‘Sacrifice and offering thou didst not desire; mine ears hast thou opened: burnt offering and sin offering hast thou not required’) is the passage quoted over in Hebrews 10:
“That’s the way a son works. That’s the way a friend works. When Deuteronomy says a friend is as one who is as thine own soul, that means they’ve come to understand what’s in your heart. They’ve bought into it and they’ve come to delight in it the same way you delight in it.
“Jesus says to these apostles, ‘You are my friends.’ Do you know the first person in the Bible called a friend of God was Abraham?
*****
James 2:21 says, “Was not Abraham our father justified by works, when he had offered Isaac his son upon the altar?”
Jordan explains, “It isn’t the work for works sake. It’s the works because you’ve bought into and understand what God’s doing. It’s the works produced by faith in the verses and the truth, and it’s the outworking of God’s life in Believers.
“It’s always God’s Word working through His people to produce the fruit. ‘And the scripture was fulfilled which saith, Abraham believed God, and it was imputed unto him for righteousness: and he was called the Friend of God.
[24] Ye see then how that by works a man is justified, and not by faith only,’
“What began back there gets finished over here. And he was called ‘the friend of God.’ Now he’s called the friend of God. That passage is in II Chronicles 20 and Isaiah 41. Abraham was called this because he came to the place where he understood and bought into and lived out, delighted in what the Father delighted in.
“Likewise, these apostles, the night before Christ dies, He takes them aside to say: ‘I’m going to go die. I’m going to die for you. You’re my friends. You’re the ones who I’ve . . . ‘
“Verse 15 says, ‘Henceforth I call you not servants; for the servant knoweth not what his lord doeth: but I have called you friends; for all things that I have heard of my Father I have made known unto you.’
“Just like my Father has revealed all these things to me, I’ve revealed them to you. I’ve entrusted the deposit the Father gave me with you. Just as I’ve learned what the Father is doing and I’m delighting in it, I’m giving it to you to delight in! You’re my friends. You’re as mine own soul. So I’m not going to call you servants. I’m going to call you friends because I’ve made you my friends. You’ve not chosen me but I’ve chosen you and ordained you that you should go and bring forth fruit and that your fruit should remain.’
“That goes back to chapter 14 where we’re talking about this permanent nature in the New Covenant that comes in, and now they’re going to have this permanent indwelling of the Holy Spirit, this permanent heart-writing of the law, this permanent working.
“It’s not going to be temporary anymore. It’s not going to be this David stuff back there in Psalm 51 where he says, ‘Don’t take it away from me,’ afraid that it would be. Or Saul where he does lose it or Samson where he loses it and gets it back. It’s not going to be all of that. Now there’s going to be this permanent thing. He’s going to finish the task with Israel.
“They’re going buy into the program so fully they’re going to know what’s in line with His will. They’re going to delight in it so fully that when they talk to the Father about it, it will be just like Christ talking to the Father and it will be done. This is high ground these guys are being put on.”
*****
The key to dispensationalism understanding is the reader is on a time line where, as time goes on in the Bible, people know more than they did before. It’s called “progressive revelation.”
Psalm 42 is a classic psalm with its heading, “To the chief Musician, Maschil, for the sons of Korah.” This means it was written for the head choir director; the top guy.
Jordan says, “It’s a very important thing. That term Maschil alerts you to the fact that this psalm is a psalm designed for its teaching and edification purposes. The term Maschil means to teach or to educate.
“This is a psalm designed not just to encourage, and not just to comfort, and not just to exhort, but to edify. To give instruction. And when it says ‘a song of loves,’ come over to the Song of Solomon and Isaiah 5. In the Bible there are three of these types of psalms.
“Isaiah 5:1 says, ‘Now will I sing to my wellbeloved a song of my beloved touching his vineyard. My wellbeloved hath a vineyard in a very fruitful hill.’
“ In other words this is a love song that God sings with regard, and concerning His purpose, for the nation Israel. The vineyard here is the nation Israel. Verse 7 says, ‘For the vineyard of the LORD of hosts is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah his pleasant plant: and he looked for judgment, but behold oppression; for righteousness, but behold a cry.’
“Song of Solomon verse 1 says, ‘The song of songs, which is Solomon's.’ When it says this is ‘the song of songs,’ this is the top, most important the supreme song. It’s the song of all the songs of Solomon. And of course it’s a song about the little flock’s loyalty to her beloved and her resistance of the seduction policy of the Adversary to seduce her away from her husband.
“Psalm 45 is the third one. These songs are designed to demonstrate the purpose God has in the nation Israel and the special love relationship and manifestation of His love in relationship for them.
“Psalm 42 begins the second book of the psalms and it deals with the Messiah as Israel’s Deliverer. The first set deals with Israel’s Redeemer. Psalm 42-44 talk about the NEED for Israel to have a Deliverer and they pray. Literally those songs are praying and seeking for, and panting after, as Psalm 42 says, a Deliverer.
“Well, Psalm 45 here comes the King and it’s ‘the Deliverer is here,’ and if you wanted to title this song I guess you’d call it ‘the marriage psalm.’ ”
Friday, February 10, 2012
Vision of Delight (Twelfth Night)
It’s fascinating how creation works on two numbers: 7 and 12. The number 7 is the timing number in creation and 12 is the division number.
As Jordan explains, “Seven is a number of perfection with regard to the timing of things; the accomplishing and the maturing of something. Twelve, the number of the nation Israel, is the number of the governing of His creation; the vision of it.
“There’s the seven days of creation and ‘in the seventh day He rested.’ The seventh day was for the purpose of enjoying the work of the six days and that’s why it’s included.
“If you go to Leviticus, you’ll see God takes that seven and extends it out. He moves seven days to seven weeks (49 weeks, which is how you get to the feast of Pentecost in the 50th week) and then to seven months and you have the trumpets (the regathering of Israel) and atonement (the Second Advent) and the tabernacles (the Millennium). That’s the finality of the calendar of Israel’s calendar of redemption that starts at Passover and ends there.
“Then you move from the seven months until you have the seven years and then you have the ‘seven weeks of years,’ where you get to the year of Jubilee, and the sevens is constantly worked through God’s system. He divides seven up in the Bible.
“Seven, in Scripture, is divided generally by four and three. You can divide three and four but God usually divides it four and three. For example, in Matthew 13 He’s going to give them seven mystery parables of the kingdom.
Well, when He does it, He goes outside of the house, sits by the seashore, and gives the first four of them, then He goes back in the house and gives the last three and that pattern works all through Scripture that way.
“When you go back to the seven days of creation and work out the idea that
there’s seven purposes in creation and all those sevens tell you the timing of creation is that way.
"And then you say, ‘That last seventh day turns out to have a time period involved in it, which is a thousand years.’ Then you realize the verse, ‘One day with the Lord is as a thousand years,’ and you see the connection with those things.
“You’ll see God will tell Israel, ‘I’m gonna . . . You’ve got four and three. . .’ In Exodus, He told the nation with Moses, ‘I want you to leave out of Egypt, go out over here, get ready against the third day, because after two days I’m gonna meet with you.’
“So you’ll have the four and then you’ll have one day, two days, the third day He’ll meet with them. John 2:1 says, ‘And the third day there was a marriage in Cana of Galilee; and the mother of Jesus was there.’
“Well that third day happens to follow four days in chapter one. Well, if there’s four in chapter one and then the third day in chapter 2:1, which day would that be? The third day would be the what? You got four and one, two, third to seven.
“He goes to the Samaritans in John 4 and tarries two days and then He comes. You see that pattern through Scripture all over. Well, that’s where you get the thing we were looking at last week back in Leviticus 12.
“In Leviticus 12, the Lord spoke unto Moses saying, ‘Speak unto the children of Israel, saying, If a woman have conceived seed, and born a man child: then she shall be unclean seven days; according to the days of the separation for her infirmity shall she be unclean.’
“Now that term ‘man child’ is a very specialized term in Scripture. And although in this text it’s just talking about how she had a boy, and if you go on down it talks about what would happen if she had a maid child or a girl, that term ‘man child’ is used in the Book of Job. It’s also used in Revelation 12 as a reference to the 144,000.
“So it’s a term of art in Scripture. Here it’s talking about having a child, but THE man child in the Scripture is a reference to the Lord Jesus Christ. He’s THE man.
“On the eighth day, the day of the new beginning, there’s going to be a cutting off of all that goes before. You don’t cut it off at the beginning of the seventh day; you cut it off at the end of the seventh day and the beginning of the eighth day. The new thing begins after the seven days.”
As Jordan explains, “Seven is a number of perfection with regard to the timing of things; the accomplishing and the maturing of something. Twelve, the number of the nation Israel, is the number of the governing of His creation; the vision of it.
“There’s the seven days of creation and ‘in the seventh day He rested.’ The seventh day was for the purpose of enjoying the work of the six days and that’s why it’s included.
“If you go to Leviticus, you’ll see God takes that seven and extends it out. He moves seven days to seven weeks (49 weeks, which is how you get to the feast of Pentecost in the 50th week) and then to seven months and you have the trumpets (the regathering of Israel) and atonement (the Second Advent) and the tabernacles (the Millennium). That’s the finality of the calendar of Israel’s calendar of redemption that starts at Passover and ends there.
“Then you move from the seven months until you have the seven years and then you have the ‘seven weeks of years,’ where you get to the year of Jubilee, and the sevens is constantly worked through God’s system. He divides seven up in the Bible.
“Seven, in Scripture, is divided generally by four and three. You can divide three and four but God usually divides it four and three. For example, in Matthew 13 He’s going to give them seven mystery parables of the kingdom.
Well, when He does it, He goes outside of the house, sits by the seashore, and gives the first four of them, then He goes back in the house and gives the last three and that pattern works all through Scripture that way.
“When you go back to the seven days of creation and work out the idea that
there’s seven purposes in creation and all those sevens tell you the timing of creation is that way.
"And then you say, ‘That last seventh day turns out to have a time period involved in it, which is a thousand years.’ Then you realize the verse, ‘One day with the Lord is as a thousand years,’ and you see the connection with those things.
“You’ll see God will tell Israel, ‘I’m gonna . . . You’ve got four and three. . .’ In Exodus, He told the nation with Moses, ‘I want you to leave out of Egypt, go out over here, get ready against the third day, because after two days I’m gonna meet with you.’
“So you’ll have the four and then you’ll have one day, two days, the third day He’ll meet with them. John 2:1 says, ‘And the third day there was a marriage in Cana of Galilee; and the mother of Jesus was there.’
“Well that third day happens to follow four days in chapter one. Well, if there’s four in chapter one and then the third day in chapter 2:1, which day would that be? The third day would be the what? You got four and one, two, third to seven.
“He goes to the Samaritans in John 4 and tarries two days and then He comes. You see that pattern through Scripture all over. Well, that’s where you get the thing we were looking at last week back in Leviticus 12.
“In Leviticus 12, the Lord spoke unto Moses saying, ‘Speak unto the children of Israel, saying, If a woman have conceived seed, and born a man child: then she shall be unclean seven days; according to the days of the separation for her infirmity shall she be unclean.’
“Now that term ‘man child’ is a very specialized term in Scripture. And although in this text it’s just talking about how she had a boy, and if you go on down it talks about what would happen if she had a maid child or a girl, that term ‘man child’ is used in the Book of Job. It’s also used in Revelation 12 as a reference to the 144,000.
“So it’s a term of art in Scripture. Here it’s talking about having a child, but THE man child in the Scripture is a reference to the Lord Jesus Christ. He’s THE man.
“On the eighth day, the day of the new beginning, there’s going to be a cutting off of all that goes before. You don’t cut it off at the beginning of the seventh day; you cut it off at the end of the seventh day and the beginning of the eighth day. The new thing begins after the seven days.”
Thursday, February 9, 2012
When other comforts flee . . .
The Greek word for comforter is “parakletos,” meaning “come alongside.” John 14:16 says, “And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever.”
Jordan says, “Notice it says He shall give you ANOTHER Comforter. The Comforter when He comes is going to replace one who was already there. Who was that? The Lord Jesus Christ. He said, ‘If I go away, He’ll replace me.’ So who did the Comforter replace? The Holy Spirit is given His own personal office--His own personal ID--that only a person could fill.
“If Jesus Christ was a person and another Comforter came along to stand beside, what would that mean? By the way, I John 2 says, ‘We have an advocate with the Father.’ The word ‘advocate’ literally means to stand beside. It’s the same idea. The Stand Besider. In law, the advocate comes to stand beside his client.
“The Holy Spirit is going to take the place of a person. You see, he’s not a force; he’s a person. And the pronouns that are used here, over and over, He’s called a ‘he.’ Somebody says, ‘Well, what about Romans 8:16 where it calls Him an ‘it’? People say, ‘Ooh-ooh, denying the personality of the Holy Spirit.’ You know, you ought to just go sit down for a little while and cool your jets when you start talking like that because that’s just so silly.
“While there’s some technical reasons in the translation for using ‘it,’ it’s interesting in Romans 8:27 he swaps over and says ‘he.’ So the pronouns are pretty clear that you’re expecting a person to be involved in this.
“Now when you have personality you have the ability to have certain types of characteristics. You have knowledge, will, the ability to have emotions. I Corinthians 2:10 says, ‘But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit: for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God.’
“Notice the Spirit of God has knowledge, the ability to search knowledge,
the ability to teach and reveal knowledge. That’s all characteristics of a person. By the way, He can SPEAK when He reveals the knowledge. Revelation 2 talks about the words that the Spirit spoke unto them. Galatians 4:6 says, ‘And because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father.’
“It’s that spirit of sonship but He SPEAKS. In Romans 8 we read that He makes ‘intercession for the saints.’ Well, that’s something a person does! In verse 34, you see the Lord Jesus Christ at the right hand of God making intercession. The same characteristics that are identified as true of Jesus are identified as true of the Holy Spirit.
“Romans 15:30 says, ‘Now I beseech you, brethren, for the Lord Jesus Christ's sake, and for the love of the Spirit, that ye strive together with me in your prayers to God for me.’
“Notice there are some things that the Spirit loves. He has the capacity to love things. He’s a person. That’s why He can be grieved. That’s why He can have these things happen to Him because of His personality. He does the things that PEOPLE do. He intercedes, He gives testimony, He bears witness, He teaches and He’s a person outside of the Father and the Son. He’s a person but He’s also a distinct member of the godhead.
“Jesus Christ and God the Holy Spirit have always existed and here He is before all things and by Him all things consist. He’s outside of creation. He was there before there was any creation. When it says that ‘by him were all things made,’ there’s one of the modern translations that says ‘all OTHER things were made.’ But that’s not what it said. There’s no other there. If He made everything then every part of creation is different from Him because He was there before creation and all of creation He made. Now if He is not eternally, absolutely God, then somewhere along the line He was made and you couldn’t say that He made all things if He was made. So that’s a great verse.
“Paul when he wrote this wasn’t trying to teach the issues of the deity of Christ; he assumes that, just as we do. He’s teaching the ramifications of it but you don’t want to miss the fact that it’s there.
“ ‘And he is the head of the body, the church.’ The reason He’s made the head of the body, and the key there, is that in all things He can have preeminence. Not just the things in the earth but the things in heaven too.
“ ‘Admired in all them that believe.’ There’s an issue of what we do now and how our conduct now affects the admiration He gains through us out there. That’s what verse 11’s talking about. ‘Worthy of this calling.’
“Notice He’s praying for them that God would count them worthy. Now when you count something worthy, you identify it and approve it for something.
“The calling is not salvation. What people do in theology is they take these terms out of the Bible and apply them and put theological meanings to them and they get them all messed up.
“The calling is what happens when you are saved. In Christ you have a calling, which is what God is doing with the Body of Christ. Why did He form it? What did He intend for it to do?
“For some members of the Body of Christ there’s going to be a different level of admiration than for others and there’s this privileged status that’s going to be awarded to us for Christ’s sake--not us but for Him for how much of our lives is filled up with him!
“How much of the activity in your life . . . At the Judgment Seat of Christ, you’re not going to face your sins—the Cross took care of them. You’re never going to have to face God with your failure and have to deal with that. The Cross takes care of the guilt and ALL the payment for everything.
“As a child of God and a saint of the most high God, as one who was ‘created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them,’ how much time did you focus on in your life on being who we are in Christ?
“When you get to the Judgment Seat of Christ, all the time you were walking after the flesh--walking in your own way, walking in denomination or religious tyranny or performance or whatever (something other than it being Christ in you living through you) . . . in essence when you get there and you go through it, you’re going to come out on the other side with just a blank in those areas. Empty places.
“And what you lose, as detailed in I Corinthians 3, is the reward that you could have had by having your life filled up with Him. Well, if you fill your life up now, do you get a reward now from that? Whoa, listen, you have the privilege, as Philippians 1 says, ‘Not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for his sake.’ Paul said, ‘That I may know him and the fellowship of his suffering.’
“You learn an intimacy with the Lord and an appreciation of His grace, and there are some rewards right now in your personal fellowship with the Lord, your personal maturity and your growing and you’re able to be comforted with the comfort of God.
“The being counted worthy here has to do with the reigning that we’ll have, the functioning that we’ll have with Him in the ages to come. If we suffer with Him now, we reign with Him then. So when you go to the Judgment Seat of Christ, you’re not going to face your sins in the sense of the guilt and shame and payment, but you certainly will be accountable for the way you used your life.
“I’ve always loved that verse in I Peter 3:4 where he says, ‘Let’s let the time of the past suffice for the works of the flesh.’ The works of the flesh are a waste of your life in time.
“You come away from here with the reward; with the status and the capacity of serving Him. It’s the capacity for Him to be admired in all them that believe. Verse 11. We sing that song, ‘It will be worth it all when we see Jesus.’
"And when you see Him get glorified and admired in all the saints, then you’ll say, ‘Wow, it certainly is!’ And it’s that work of faith with power."
Jordan says, “Notice it says He shall give you ANOTHER Comforter. The Comforter when He comes is going to replace one who was already there. Who was that? The Lord Jesus Christ. He said, ‘If I go away, He’ll replace me.’ So who did the Comforter replace? The Holy Spirit is given His own personal office--His own personal ID--that only a person could fill.
“If Jesus Christ was a person and another Comforter came along to stand beside, what would that mean? By the way, I John 2 says, ‘We have an advocate with the Father.’ The word ‘advocate’ literally means to stand beside. It’s the same idea. The Stand Besider. In law, the advocate comes to stand beside his client.
“The Holy Spirit is going to take the place of a person. You see, he’s not a force; he’s a person. And the pronouns that are used here, over and over, He’s called a ‘he.’ Somebody says, ‘Well, what about Romans 8:16 where it calls Him an ‘it’? People say, ‘Ooh-ooh, denying the personality of the Holy Spirit.’ You know, you ought to just go sit down for a little while and cool your jets when you start talking like that because that’s just so silly.
“While there’s some technical reasons in the translation for using ‘it,’ it’s interesting in Romans 8:27 he swaps over and says ‘he.’ So the pronouns are pretty clear that you’re expecting a person to be involved in this.
“Now when you have personality you have the ability to have certain types of characteristics. You have knowledge, will, the ability to have emotions. I Corinthians 2:10 says, ‘But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit: for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God.’
“Notice the Spirit of God has knowledge, the ability to search knowledge,
the ability to teach and reveal knowledge. That’s all characteristics of a person. By the way, He can SPEAK when He reveals the knowledge. Revelation 2 talks about the words that the Spirit spoke unto them. Galatians 4:6 says, ‘And because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father.’
“It’s that spirit of sonship but He SPEAKS. In Romans 8 we read that He makes ‘intercession for the saints.’ Well, that’s something a person does! In verse 34, you see the Lord Jesus Christ at the right hand of God making intercession. The same characteristics that are identified as true of Jesus are identified as true of the Holy Spirit.
“Romans 15:30 says, ‘Now I beseech you, brethren, for the Lord Jesus Christ's sake, and for the love of the Spirit, that ye strive together with me in your prayers to God for me.’
“Notice there are some things that the Spirit loves. He has the capacity to love things. He’s a person. That’s why He can be grieved. That’s why He can have these things happen to Him because of His personality. He does the things that PEOPLE do. He intercedes, He gives testimony, He bears witness, He teaches and He’s a person outside of the Father and the Son. He’s a person but He’s also a distinct member of the godhead.
“Jesus Christ and God the Holy Spirit have always existed and here He is before all things and by Him all things consist. He’s outside of creation. He was there before there was any creation. When it says that ‘by him were all things made,’ there’s one of the modern translations that says ‘all OTHER things were made.’ But that’s not what it said. There’s no other there. If He made everything then every part of creation is different from Him because He was there before creation and all of creation He made. Now if He is not eternally, absolutely God, then somewhere along the line He was made and you couldn’t say that He made all things if He was made. So that’s a great verse.
“Paul when he wrote this wasn’t trying to teach the issues of the deity of Christ; he assumes that, just as we do. He’s teaching the ramifications of it but you don’t want to miss the fact that it’s there.
“ ‘And he is the head of the body, the church.’ The reason He’s made the head of the body, and the key there, is that in all things He can have preeminence. Not just the things in the earth but the things in heaven too.
“ ‘Admired in all them that believe.’ There’s an issue of what we do now and how our conduct now affects the admiration He gains through us out there. That’s what verse 11’s talking about. ‘Worthy of this calling.’
“Notice He’s praying for them that God would count them worthy. Now when you count something worthy, you identify it and approve it for something.
“The calling is not salvation. What people do in theology is they take these terms out of the Bible and apply them and put theological meanings to them and they get them all messed up.
“The calling is what happens when you are saved. In Christ you have a calling, which is what God is doing with the Body of Christ. Why did He form it? What did He intend for it to do?
“For some members of the Body of Christ there’s going to be a different level of admiration than for others and there’s this privileged status that’s going to be awarded to us for Christ’s sake--not us but for Him for how much of our lives is filled up with him!
“How much of the activity in your life . . . At the Judgment Seat of Christ, you’re not going to face your sins—the Cross took care of them. You’re never going to have to face God with your failure and have to deal with that. The Cross takes care of the guilt and ALL the payment for everything.
“As a child of God and a saint of the most high God, as one who was ‘created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them,’ how much time did you focus on in your life on being who we are in Christ?
“When you get to the Judgment Seat of Christ, all the time you were walking after the flesh--walking in your own way, walking in denomination or religious tyranny or performance or whatever (something other than it being Christ in you living through you) . . . in essence when you get there and you go through it, you’re going to come out on the other side with just a blank in those areas. Empty places.
“And what you lose, as detailed in I Corinthians 3, is the reward that you could have had by having your life filled up with Him. Well, if you fill your life up now, do you get a reward now from that? Whoa, listen, you have the privilege, as Philippians 1 says, ‘Not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for his sake.’ Paul said, ‘That I may know him and the fellowship of his suffering.’
“You learn an intimacy with the Lord and an appreciation of His grace, and there are some rewards right now in your personal fellowship with the Lord, your personal maturity and your growing and you’re able to be comforted with the comfort of God.
“The being counted worthy here has to do with the reigning that we’ll have, the functioning that we’ll have with Him in the ages to come. If we suffer with Him now, we reign with Him then. So when you go to the Judgment Seat of Christ, you’re not going to face your sins in the sense of the guilt and shame and payment, but you certainly will be accountable for the way you used your life.
“I’ve always loved that verse in I Peter 3:4 where he says, ‘Let’s let the time of the past suffice for the works of the flesh.’ The works of the flesh are a waste of your life in time.
“You come away from here with the reward; with the status and the capacity of serving Him. It’s the capacity for Him to be admired in all them that believe. Verse 11. We sing that song, ‘It will be worth it all when we see Jesus.’
"And when you see Him get glorified and admired in all the saints, then you’ll say, ‘Wow, it certainly is!’ And it’s that work of faith with power."
Wednesday, February 1, 2012
Got it!
Back from New York and happy to be in Chicago! The trip only confirmed my joy and relief that I’ve returned to my city from a city that is Second City to me!
Here’s a passage from an old study I listened to on my subway-to-bus-to-subway trip from O’Hare to the lakefront:
Psalm 45:7 says, “Thou lovest righteousness, and hatest wickedness: therefore God, thy God, hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows.”
Jordan explains, “Now that verse, people don’t like that because they think, ‘It’s okay to love righteousness but you shouldn’t hate wickedness.’ But you know that’s exactly what the Bible says God does?”
Psalm 5 exhorts, “[1] Give ear to my words, O LORD, consider my meditation.
[2] Hearken unto the voice of my cry, my King, and my God: for unto thee will I pray.
[3] My voice shalt thou hear in the morning, O LORD; in the morning will I direct my prayer unto thee, and will look up.
[4] For thou art not a God that hath pleasure in wickedness: neither shall evil dwell with thee.
Jordan says, “When that verse says, ‘Thou hatest all the workers of iniquity,’ the response to that should be, ‘Did you get that?’ Most people say, ‘Well, yeah, but, well, uh, uh. . .’ That’s not the response. The response is, ‘God hates all workers of iniquity.’ That verse doesn’t say simply that God hates the sin but loves the sinner. You see that?”
Psalm 11 says, 5] The LORD trieth the righteous: but the wicked and him that loveth violence his soul hateth.
[6] Upon the wicked he shall rain snares, fire and brimstone, and an horrible tempest: this shall be the portion of their cup.
[7] For the righteous LORD loveth righteousness; his countenance doth behold the upright.
Jordan says, “You see, the holiness and integrity of God will not tolerate sin and it hates it. Now that’s something you need to remember because sometimes we think that God, because of His grace and because of Calvary, will tolerate sin. He doesn’t.
“The Cross is the greatest demonstration of God’s attitude toward sin the
universe will ever see. And God’s attitude toward sin at the Cross is it took the sacrifice of His Son to put it away. It took the sacrifice of the most valuable entity the universe could ever possess to put away sin. It is a big deal. And the Cross answers it. ‘But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.’
“While we were yet somebody God hated, Christ made it possible for Him to love you by dying for you. Now that’s something. I was reading that verse in Revelation 13 yesterday thinking about how He’s the ‘lamb slain from before the foundation of the world.’ That means God had this stuff planned out before He ever created anybody.
“You talk about grace upon grace, and mercy, and righteousness and meekness. That’s it! God loves righteousness and He hateth wickedness. If He loved righteousness He’d have to hate wickedness.
“And you know, folks, as Believers, if we love righteousness, there’s no way we can love wickedness. It’s okay to be intolerant about that.
“In this world that we live in today, the stupid philosophy of Genesis 3 prevails. People think like it’s something new and sophisticated and chic and all that stuff. It’s as old as the Garden of Eden. But people get the idea that you can tolerate evil and that everything’s relative and it’s okay just to put up with it.
“That’s not what the Cross teaches you. The Cross teaches you that God put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself.
“Jesus Christ had the same thinking process and the same value system that God the Father had. He thought just like the Father. God has appointed Him to be His standard bearer. ‘Anointed Him with the oil of gladness above thy fellows.’
*****
“He anointed him with the Holy Spirit above his fellows. That means it was without any holding back in any way. The word ‘fellow’ means someone who is your equal.
“Zechariah 13:7 says, ‘Awake, O sword, against my shepherd, and against the man that is my fellow, saith the LORD of hosts: smite the shepherd, and the sheep shall be scattered: and I will turn mine hand upon the little ones.’
“So God the Father looks at this man and says, ‘This man is my equal.’ In Psalm 45 the Lord Jesus Christ, God the Father looks at some people and says they are my sons equal. Well who are those people? That’s the little flock. That’s that redeemed remnant in Israel.
“Psalm 45:8: ‘All thy garments smell of myrrh, and aloes, and cassia, out of the ivory palaces, whereby they have made thee glad.’ What I’m doing as I go is I’m trying to show you some of these verses where you can see how some of these things apply to the Lord Jesus.
“The New Jerusalem is described as the ivory palaces. Solomon built that great judgment hall all out of ivory back in I Kings and that verse is used in I Kings 22 about the palace of Ahab. And it’s a term that’s poetically and figuratively used to describe the city, talking about heaven.
“He came out of heaven down to the Cross and the garments He comes in as king have the fragrance of the anointing that reminds you of the Cross and everything He does as the king, everything He does as the Conqueror, everything He accomplishes and finds to rejoice in.”
Here’s a passage from an old study I listened to on my subway-to-bus-to-subway trip from O’Hare to the lakefront:
Psalm 45:7 says, “Thou lovest righteousness, and hatest wickedness: therefore God, thy God, hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows.”
Jordan explains, “Now that verse, people don’t like that because they think, ‘It’s okay to love righteousness but you shouldn’t hate wickedness.’ But you know that’s exactly what the Bible says God does?”
Psalm 5 exhorts, “[1] Give ear to my words, O LORD, consider my meditation.
[2] Hearken unto the voice of my cry, my King, and my God: for unto thee will I pray.
[3] My voice shalt thou hear in the morning, O LORD; in the morning will I direct my prayer unto thee, and will look up.
[4] For thou art not a God that hath pleasure in wickedness: neither shall evil dwell with thee.
Jordan says, “When that verse says, ‘Thou hatest all the workers of iniquity,’ the response to that should be, ‘Did you get that?’ Most people say, ‘Well, yeah, but, well, uh, uh. . .’ That’s not the response. The response is, ‘God hates all workers of iniquity.’ That verse doesn’t say simply that God hates the sin but loves the sinner. You see that?”
Psalm 11 says, 5] The LORD trieth the righteous: but the wicked and him that loveth violence his soul hateth.
[6] Upon the wicked he shall rain snares, fire and brimstone, and an horrible tempest: this shall be the portion of their cup.
[7] For the righteous LORD loveth righteousness; his countenance doth behold the upright.
Jordan says, “You see, the holiness and integrity of God will not tolerate sin and it hates it. Now that’s something you need to remember because sometimes we think that God, because of His grace and because of Calvary, will tolerate sin. He doesn’t.
“The Cross is the greatest demonstration of God’s attitude toward sin the
universe will ever see. And God’s attitude toward sin at the Cross is it took the sacrifice of His Son to put it away. It took the sacrifice of the most valuable entity the universe could ever possess to put away sin. It is a big deal. And the Cross answers it. ‘But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.’
“While we were yet somebody God hated, Christ made it possible for Him to love you by dying for you. Now that’s something. I was reading that verse in Revelation 13 yesterday thinking about how He’s the ‘lamb slain from before the foundation of the world.’ That means God had this stuff planned out before He ever created anybody.
“You talk about grace upon grace, and mercy, and righteousness and meekness. That’s it! God loves righteousness and He hateth wickedness. If He loved righteousness He’d have to hate wickedness.
“And you know, folks, as Believers, if we love righteousness, there’s no way we can love wickedness. It’s okay to be intolerant about that.
“In this world that we live in today, the stupid philosophy of Genesis 3 prevails. People think like it’s something new and sophisticated and chic and all that stuff. It’s as old as the Garden of Eden. But people get the idea that you can tolerate evil and that everything’s relative and it’s okay just to put up with it.
“That’s not what the Cross teaches you. The Cross teaches you that God put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself.
“Jesus Christ had the same thinking process and the same value system that God the Father had. He thought just like the Father. God has appointed Him to be His standard bearer. ‘Anointed Him with the oil of gladness above thy fellows.’
*****
“He anointed him with the Holy Spirit above his fellows. That means it was without any holding back in any way. The word ‘fellow’ means someone who is your equal.
“Zechariah 13:7 says, ‘Awake, O sword, against my shepherd, and against the man that is my fellow, saith the LORD of hosts: smite the shepherd, and the sheep shall be scattered: and I will turn mine hand upon the little ones.’
“So God the Father looks at this man and says, ‘This man is my equal.’ In Psalm 45 the Lord Jesus Christ, God the Father looks at some people and says they are my sons equal. Well who are those people? That’s the little flock. That’s that redeemed remnant in Israel.
“Psalm 45:8: ‘All thy garments smell of myrrh, and aloes, and cassia, out of the ivory palaces, whereby they have made thee glad.’ What I’m doing as I go is I’m trying to show you some of these verses where you can see how some of these things apply to the Lord Jesus.
“The New Jerusalem is described as the ivory palaces. Solomon built that great judgment hall all out of ivory back in I Kings and that verse is used in I Kings 22 about the palace of Ahab. And it’s a term that’s poetically and figuratively used to describe the city, talking about heaven.
“He came out of heaven down to the Cross and the garments He comes in as king have the fragrance of the anointing that reminds you of the Cross and everything He does as the king, everything He does as the Conqueror, everything He accomplishes and finds to rejoice in.”
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)