In the first five chapters of Joshua are tremendous issues as the ark of the covenant of the Lord of all the earth goes in. This is the official beginning of God coming to fulfill His purpose with the nation Israel. The ark, the symbol of His presence, is out before them, leading them.
Jordan explains, “He comes up to the Jordan River, and when the priests reach out to step right into the brim of the water, the verse says in chapter 3 that the water coming down from the north stopped and where it says it stops, by the way, is a city about 30 miles upstream. So this thing takes a little while and that water quits flowing and then goes all the way down to the Dead Sea and there’s just this big dry river bed out there.
“And so the hundreds and hundreds of thousands of Israelis that cross Jordan, they literally cross the dry river bed without any water in sight. When the priest stands there in the river bed, and the people file across and come out on the other side, they then put memorial stones in the river and on the bank. They’re marking the spot where Jesus Christ at the Second Advent will cross the Jordan going into Jerusalem to the Mount of Olives.
“They’re going to go into the land, go across that river, and they are an armed camp going in to take away some people’s land from them and they’re doing it under the command of God and God Almighty is going to fight for them. They’re going to see ‘the living God,’ not some dead god that loses his head when he falls over, or the golden calf Aaron made for them.
“That term ‘the living God’ is a title used for God when He wants to describe Himself as a God who can get the job done and can act and do things. It’s used in contrast to dead gods, or idols. He’s going into a land owned and possessed by idols. They’re going into a land that is literally the stronghold of the earth of the satanic policy of evil, held by idolatry.
“As Joshua 3 says, ‘And as they that bare the ark were come unto Jordan, and the feet of the priests that bare the ark were dipped in the brim of the water, (for Jordan overfloweth all his banks all the time of harvest,)
[16] That the waters which came down from above stood and rose up upon an heap very far from the city Adam, that is beside Zaretan: and those that came down toward the sea of the plain, even the salt sea, failed, and were cut off: and the people passed over right against Jericho.
[17] And the priests that bare the ark of the covenant of the LORD stood firm on dry ground in the midst of Jordan, and all the Israelites passed over on dry ground, until all the people were passed clean over Jordan.’
“Then in chapter 4, they put some memorials, take the stones and put them in the river and on the land and they mark the spot where they did that. That’s the same spot where later Elijah goes out of the land. It’s the same spot where centuries later John the Baptist comes and preaches repentance and baptizes the Lord Jesus Christ in the Jordan.
“That’s also the same spot Jesus Christ revisits when He comes back and goes to the Mount of Olives. He comes from the east to the west across the Jordan River. That’s because the thing that goes on here in Joshua is going to be the issue all the way out to the Second Advent.
“The issue is demonstrated very clearly in verse 11 (‘Behold, the ark of the covenant of the Lord of all the earth passeth over before you into Jordan’) and 13 (‘And it shall come to pass, as soon as the soles of the feet of the priests that bear the ark of the LORD, the Lord of all the earth, shall rest in the waters of Jordan’) by the title given to the Lord in this passage. That’s a tremendously important title. It has to do with His sovereign rule in the earth. It’s a kingdom, or messianic title, that belongs to the Lord Jesus Christ.
*****
Psalm 97 is a Second Advent psalm looking to when the Lord comes back to reign. 97:5 says, ‘The hills melted like wax at the presence of the LORD, at the presence of the Lord of the whole earth.’ Revelation 1 says every eye shall see Him and wail because of Him.
“When He comes back to reign, that’s His title. He’s the Lord of the whole earth. Micah 4 says, ‘And many nations shall come, and say, Come, and let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, and to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths: for the law shall go forth of Zion, and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem.
[3] And he shall judge among many people, and rebuke strong nations afar off; and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks: nation shall not lift up a sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.’
“That’s like Isaiah 2 but we’re talking about the kingdom here and the time it’s established. Verse 7 says, ‘And I will make her that halted a remnant, and her that was cast far off a strong nation: and the LORD shall reign over them in mount Zion from henceforth, even for ever.’
At the end of verse 8 it says ‘the kingdom shall come to the daughter of mount Zion.’ Go down to verse 13: ‘Arise and thresh, O daughter of Zion: for I will make thine horn iron, and I will make thy hoofs brass: and thou shalt beat in pieces many people: and I will consecrate their gain unto the LORD, and their substance unto the Lord of the whole earth.’
“I’m trying to get you to see that that title ‘the Lord of the whole earth’ is a title used over and over in connection with the kingdom; his rule in the earth in the kingdom. Literally what you have going on here in Joshua is He’s coming in with His nation and they are going into the land of Palestine, the land of Canaan, for the purpose of possessing, or repossessing it, from the satanic policy of evil. So what we have here is Jehovah formally beginning the repossession of the earth through the nation Israel.
“Come to II Chronicles and notice a contrast in this title. You’ve skipped all the way over to the captivity, to the 5th course of judgment. In Joshua, they go into the land and fail and the Book of Judges is the first course of judgment of Leviticus 26.
“Finally they’re carried away into Babylonian captivity in II Chronicles 36, and after being held 70 years (just like Jeremiah said they would be), the Word of the Lord comes to Cyrus (like Isaiah had been told that it would) and we read these words in II Chron. 36:22: ‘Now in the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, that the word of the LORD spoken by the mouth of Jeremiah might be accomplished, the LORD stirred up the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia, that he made a proclamation throughout all his kingdom, and put it also in writing, saying,
[23] Thus saith Cyrus king of Persia, All the kingdoms of the earth hath the LORD God of heaven given me; and he hath charged me to build him an house in Jerusalem, which is in Judah. Who is there among you of all his people? The LORD his God be with him, and let him go up.’
“Through their failure He finally withdraws and becomes the Lord God of Heaven on EXILE, as it were. That’s why it’s ‘in the days of those kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom on the earth.’ He has to come back WITH IT. That’s why it’s called the kingdom of HEAVEN. Not because it belongs there, or that it’s located there; it’s the Lord God of all the earth establishing the kingdom, but He has to bring it from the place where it’s been placed in rejection.
“All of that begins, and the ground is being set for that, in the book of Joshua. Don’t just think that what’s going on here is a bunch of stories. There’s a tremendous doctrinal issue about the role of the nation Israel in the purpose and program of God.
*****
“In chapter 5, Joshua circumcises the nation (a type of the regathering and reestablishing of the identity of Israel) and then at the end of the chapter, verse 13 says, ‘And it came to pass, when Joshua was by Jericho, that he lifted up his eyes and looked, and, behold, there stood a man over against him with his sword drawn in his hand: and Joshua went unto him, and said unto him, Art thou for us, or for our adversaries?’
“Joshua’s ready to go the next day against Jericho, and the evening before he walks out, he’s just going to take a survey of the land before his evening rest and there’s a fellow standing there with a sword in his hand.
"Joshua says, ‘Are you for us or against us?! Let’s have it out right now!’ Verse 14: ‘And he said, Nay; but as captain of the host of the LORD am I now come. And Joshua fell on his face to the earth, and did worship, and said unto him, What saith my lord unto his servant? 15] And the captain of the LORD's host said unto Joshua, Loose thy shoe from off thy foot; for the place whereon thou standest is holy. And Joshua did so.’
“He said, ‘I’m not on your side or anybody else’s side. The question is not whose side am I on. The question is, ‘I’m the boss!' The question isn’t ‘Am I on your side?’ The question is ‘Are you on my side? Because I’m the captain of the host of the Lord.’
“What the Lord’s telling him is,‘The ground you’re standing on is holy; you made a mistake.’ He’s to recognize the purpose God had. What Joshua needed to do was recognize God’s perspective on the land of Canaan. There going into the land in order to possess it for a specific purpose for which God created them for and that has to do with establishing His authority in the planet through a kingdom that’s going to be established in that piece of real estate.
“This is the Lord Jesus Christ and He comes as the Captain of the Lord’s host and that will remind them of back in Exodus 17 about Jehovah Nissi, ‘the Lord our Conqueror.’ The Lord is the one who’s going to avenge Israel, avenge the Gentiles for their rebellion and so He comes as the warrior.
“The issue there about holy ground; the issue is Joshua is to get a divine perspective of the land. He’s not to think of the land from a human viewpoint but this is the very land God promised Abraham to accomplish his reconciliation program.
“You remember Moses had that same thing happen to him back in exodus 3. When someone was told to remove their shoe in Leviticus, the reason was they had failed in an obligation. Ruth 4 when the man can’t redeem her, he takes his shoe off. It’s a demonstration of a failure of an obligation.
“Moses had failed to recognize what God was doing. You see, the idea about the ground being holy, if it’s just the holy ground in the sense of the righteousness of God being there, you wouldn’t take your shoes off. The shoes are made of animal skins.
“The shedding of blood would be between your feet and your flesh and the holy ground. That would be what you’d want there. Something more than what people generally say. They didn’t recognize the value of what God was doing in that land. Joshua’s being instructed and rebuked here about, ‘Hey, it isn’t whose side you’re on; it’s whose side the Lord’s on. It’s you being on HIS side and understanding what HE’S doing!’
“The Captain is going to be the nation’s military leader. He’s going to be Jehovah Nissi, going out and conquering for them. You look in your Bible’s margin notes and you’ll see Jehovah Nissi is often translated ‘the Lord our banner.’
“The idea is the army would go out and have their insignia that led ahead and that banner was leading the charge. He’s going to go out and avenge His people against their enemy.
“Look at all those kings. There’s an awful lot of people that they dispossess and they didn’t just dispossess them; they murderated them! They went in with the mandate that they were to utterly destroy them.
“Joshua 6:21. People say, ‘Oh, the were brutal to kill the women and the kids!’ This is not a surgical strike; this is a scorched earth policy. You go in and you kill everybody!
"Joshua 8:26 and 9:24. I mean, Moses said, ‘Go kill ‘em all!’ and they’re coming in to do it. You see, when He says back in verse 1, ‘Keep my commandments,’ one of the commandments is, ‘Go kill everybody in the land.’
“ ‘Go up there and take that land and once you do, you don’t conquer it, you don’t get them to surrender. It’s unconditional surrender after you’ve slaughtered everybody. And don’t leave one person left alive. Kill the men, young and old. Kill the women, kills the kids. Wipe ‘em all out!’
“ Can you understand why somebody thinks the God of the Old Testament was a bloodthirsty, savage barbarian?!”
(Editor’s note: to be continued . . .)
Saturday, March 31, 2012
Thursday, March 29, 2012
Context and timing
Psalm 79:9 says, “Help us, O God of our salvation, for the glory of thy name: and deliver us, and purge away our sins, for thy name's sake.”
Jordan explains, “That’s what the request for vengeance is. It’s not just, ‘Come and deliver us,’ but it’s, ‘Glorify your name, your purpose, your plan in Israel!’
“Verse 10 says, ‘Wherefore should the heathen say, Where is their God? let him be known among the heathen in our sight by the revenging of the blood of thy servants which is shed.
[11] Let the sighing of the prisoner come before thee; according to the greatness of thy power preserve thou those that are appointed to die.’
“There’s just passage after passage in the prophets and Revelation and so forth about those kind of things. The sighing of the prisoner . . . In Matthew 25, He says, ‘I was in prison and you visited me,’ and that kind of a thing.
“In Joel 3, Zechariah 14, and so forth. The ‘little flock’ is put into prison, persecuted. They’re hounded by the Adversary. He’s seeking to exterminate Israel, and that Believing Remnant of a little flock of believers are crying out to God to be not just delivered from the extermination of the Adversary, but to have the Adversary himself destroyed.
“That’s like over in Isaiah 49, a passage we’ve had to consider before in this regard. Isaiah 49:24-25 says, ‘Shall the prey be taken from the mighty, or the lawful captive delivered?
[25] But thus saith the LORD, Even the captives of the mighty shall be taken away, and the prey of the terrible shall be delivered: for I will contend with him that contendeth with thee, and I will save thy children.’
“You see, there are two issues in setting Israel free. One they had to be delivered. And so He comes and delivers them and gathers them to Himself. But they also had to have the issue of being taken from the mighty; being taken out of the hand of him (Jeremiah 31) . . .
“Not only do they need to be delivered . . . you see, if you got delivered from somebody who was mightier than you, and that enemy was still there, what might he do to you? He might come get you again. If he got you once he could get you again.
“So what they’re saying is, ‘Deliver us but also get rid of our enemy.’ And in order to completely set the issue straight, God not only delivers Israel, but He also gets rid of the enemy and completely roots out the satanic program from the earth and destroys it.
“Psalm 83 is a fantastic chapter. There are about a dozen of these chapters in the Book of Psalms that you just can’t do without when it comes to studying prophecy. And I’ve said to you before, the Book of Psalms is not a devotional book for you and me today.
“You try to use this as a devotional book, and I know you know the ‘Treasury of David’ and Spurgeon and all the books that are written about it, but you try to do that and you’re going to wind up absolutely confused in your Christian life, because devotion for you and me today as a member of the Body of Christ isn’t going to be like it is for these people, for the Believing Remnant in Israel.
“And the focus of their heart toward the Word of God, isn’t going to be what yours is, and what you’re going to wind up having to do is spiritualize all these verses into ad nauseam into nothing, as opposed to really believing what they say.
“If you leave them where they are in Israel’s program, and especially focusing in the last days of Israel’s program (because the Book of Job-Song of Solomon all have a special role to play in Israel’s last days and for the saints of Israel in the last days) they make a lot of sense and they’re a joy.
“Psalm 83 says, ‘Keep not thou silence, O God: hold not thy peace, and be not still, O God.
[2] For, lo, thine enemies make a tumult: and they that hate thee have lifted up the head.
[3] They have taken crafty counsel against thy people, and consulted against thy hidden ones.
[4] They have said, Come, and let us cut them off from being a nation; that the name of Israel may be no more in remembrance.’
“He’s saying, ‘Lord how long?! Don’t sit up there and do nothing! Come back! Don’t hold your silence! Speak in your wrath!’
“Look at verse 2. You see the issue is the enemy really hates God. ‘They have taken crafty counsel.’ Notice the context and the timing here is when the Believing Remnant is hidden. They’ve had to flee and hide from the persecution that’s come upon them.
“The official policy of the Antichrist is the extermination of the nation Israel, and they’ve set in the earth an extermination policy and they seek them, gather them up, and bring them over and seek to exterminate them. The Holocaust under the Germans will be nothing compared to what goes on here. I’m sorry.
“When this thing comes through it will be worse than anything anybody ever imagined.”
Jordan explains, “That’s what the request for vengeance is. It’s not just, ‘Come and deliver us,’ but it’s, ‘Glorify your name, your purpose, your plan in Israel!’
“Verse 10 says, ‘Wherefore should the heathen say, Where is their God? let him be known among the heathen in our sight by the revenging of the blood of thy servants which is shed.
[11] Let the sighing of the prisoner come before thee; according to the greatness of thy power preserve thou those that are appointed to die.’
“There’s just passage after passage in the prophets and Revelation and so forth about those kind of things. The sighing of the prisoner . . . In Matthew 25, He says, ‘I was in prison and you visited me,’ and that kind of a thing.
“In Joel 3, Zechariah 14, and so forth. The ‘little flock’ is put into prison, persecuted. They’re hounded by the Adversary. He’s seeking to exterminate Israel, and that Believing Remnant of a little flock of believers are crying out to God to be not just delivered from the extermination of the Adversary, but to have the Adversary himself destroyed.
“That’s like over in Isaiah 49, a passage we’ve had to consider before in this regard. Isaiah 49:24-25 says, ‘Shall the prey be taken from the mighty, or the lawful captive delivered?
[25] But thus saith the LORD, Even the captives of the mighty shall be taken away, and the prey of the terrible shall be delivered: for I will contend with him that contendeth with thee, and I will save thy children.’
“You see, there are two issues in setting Israel free. One they had to be delivered. And so He comes and delivers them and gathers them to Himself. But they also had to have the issue of being taken from the mighty; being taken out of the hand of him (Jeremiah 31) . . .
“Not only do they need to be delivered . . . you see, if you got delivered from somebody who was mightier than you, and that enemy was still there, what might he do to you? He might come get you again. If he got you once he could get you again.
“So what they’re saying is, ‘Deliver us but also get rid of our enemy.’ And in order to completely set the issue straight, God not only delivers Israel, but He also gets rid of the enemy and completely roots out the satanic program from the earth and destroys it.
“Psalm 83 is a fantastic chapter. There are about a dozen of these chapters in the Book of Psalms that you just can’t do without when it comes to studying prophecy. And I’ve said to you before, the Book of Psalms is not a devotional book for you and me today.
“You try to use this as a devotional book, and I know you know the ‘Treasury of David’ and Spurgeon and all the books that are written about it, but you try to do that and you’re going to wind up absolutely confused in your Christian life, because devotion for you and me today as a member of the Body of Christ isn’t going to be like it is for these people, for the Believing Remnant in Israel.
“And the focus of their heart toward the Word of God, isn’t going to be what yours is, and what you’re going to wind up having to do is spiritualize all these verses into ad nauseam into nothing, as opposed to really believing what they say.
“If you leave them where they are in Israel’s program, and especially focusing in the last days of Israel’s program (because the Book of Job-Song of Solomon all have a special role to play in Israel’s last days and for the saints of Israel in the last days) they make a lot of sense and they’re a joy.
“Psalm 83 says, ‘Keep not thou silence, O God: hold not thy peace, and be not still, O God.
[2] For, lo, thine enemies make a tumult: and they that hate thee have lifted up the head.
[3] They have taken crafty counsel against thy people, and consulted against thy hidden ones.
[4] They have said, Come, and let us cut them off from being a nation; that the name of Israel may be no more in remembrance.’
“He’s saying, ‘Lord how long?! Don’t sit up there and do nothing! Come back! Don’t hold your silence! Speak in your wrath!’
“Look at verse 2. You see the issue is the enemy really hates God. ‘They have taken crafty counsel.’ Notice the context and the timing here is when the Believing Remnant is hidden. They’ve had to flee and hide from the persecution that’s come upon them.
“The official policy of the Antichrist is the extermination of the nation Israel, and they’ve set in the earth an extermination policy and they seek them, gather them up, and bring them over and seek to exterminate them. The Holocaust under the Germans will be nothing compared to what goes on here. I’m sorry.
“When this thing comes through it will be worse than anything anybody ever imagined.”
Monday, March 26, 2012
Called in again
John 12:42: ‘Nevertheless among the chief rulers also many believed on him; but because of the Pharisees they did not confess him, lest they should be put out of the synagogue.’
Jordan says, “Being put out of the synagogue was a fearful thing for these Jews. In Luke 9, when Jesus began to tell His apostles about His going to the Cross, one of the things He says is He’s going to be rejected of the elders.
“That’s saying, ‘You’re not a part of Israel.’ When you did that to a Jew you completely cut his whole hope; his whole identity. All of his connection with his family and his heritage; you cut it away. They were going to hate them so much. I mean that favored nation held together. They struggled together; they stayed together. They’re going to put these guys out.
“Then He says, ‘Not only will they put you out of the synagogue, thinking they are doing God’s service (‘We’re serving God by putting you out’) they’re going to kill you!’
“That’s not just hatred and rejection; that’s physical attack that winds up in your death, and before they get you dead, they do all the things necessary to get you dead. They didn’t come up and shoot people because they didn’t have guns back then. They stoned them.
“It takes a little bit of time to stone somebody to death. I was reading an article the other day about how difficult it is to kill somebody by strangling them. You can shoot of knife somebody, but to strangle them isn’t just that you have to physically overpower them, which you do, but you literally have to hold them until their very life ebbs out of them.
“It takes more than physical strength; it takes a psychological toughness, meanness, hatred, anger, passion, whatever it is, because you have to hold them to the point where they don’t breathe anymore. In your hands you literally feel it and you literally feel it go away.
“You see, killing people is not…modern American Gentiles have made killing so easy. We send an airplane at seven miles up into the air and drop a bomb on somebody. Where the bomb lands is terrible but the dude that dropped the bomb goes back home and eats supper and goes to bed and never thinks about it.
“If that same guy had to put his hands around the neck of the woman that his bomb destroyed and squeezed the life out of them, well there’d be a different kind of situation I bet.
“One of the things the Gentiles do is they constantly become better and better at killing people. We’re talking about modern science and the improvement of things, and you know what, every modern advancement and technology has been used, not just for the good of mankind, but to make it easier to kill people. You name it! In fact, most of the technological advancements that trickle down to you and me in life comes from military advancements where they’re trying to stay ahead of the other guy so ‘he can’t kill me; I can kill him first!’
*****
“But these guys are doing this because they thinking they’re serving God. This murderous rage where they’re going to kill you. You’ll see it in the Book of Acts. Acts 4-5. Verse 5:29 says, 29] Then Peter and the other apostles answered and said, We ought to obey God rather than men.
[30] The God of our fathers raised up Jesus, whom ye slew and hanged on a tree.
“Because Peter and John had healed that man at the temple in Acts 3 they got called before the religious leaders and told, ‘Don’t do that again; you filled the city with this man’s doctrine,’ and because they kept preaching about the Lord Jesus Christ, they get called in again.
“Acts 5:28: ‘Saying, Did not we straitly command you that ye should not teach in this name? and, behold, ye have filled Jerusalem with your doctrine, and intend to bring this man's blood upon us.’
“When they murdered Him they said, ‘Let his blood be on us.’ Pilot had the big ceremony where he washed his hands of the blood of this innocent man. They said, ‘Let his blood be on us.’ But now, when the blood guiltiness is laid at their feet . . . You see the Cross wasn’t good news to them. There’s no message of love and forgiveness of enemies and sinners there in that for them. They’re mad!
“You see, when men contradict what God says, who do you obey? You obey God. Now, if the rulers tell you don’t do something God says to do, and you go ahead and obey God, that means the rulers might come down on you. You’re not doing it to be rebellious against rulers; you’re doing it to be faithful to God.
“Somebody says, ‘Well, I thought you were supposed to be subject to the powers that be? Well, you are, but duties never conflict. And you can’t take one verse of scripture and sit it up against another verse of scripture, and say, ‘Because of this verse you have to deny that verse.’ Duties don’t conflict. And when God tells you to do something, you do what God tells you.
“It’s like back in John 9 with the Pharisees arguing, ‘You healed a guy on the Sabbath. You made him see on the Sabbath. How dare you! Don’t you know what happens to people who work on the Sabbath day?!’ You remember what Jesus told them back there? ‘Well, you circumcise people on the Sabbath day.’
“Paul said, ‘I was circumcised the eighth day.’ Why’s that important? Lev. 12 says when a little boy was born on his eighth day he was to be circumcised and it didn’t make any difference if that day happened on the Sabbath day or not. Now there are two ceremonial laws. There’s nothing morally connected with the Sabbath day or circumcision. They were picture doctrines. They pictured something. A moral commandment would be like ‘Thou shalt not kill.’
“What happens when two ceremonies conflict? One of them took precedence over the other and they all knew it. They knew the circumcision took precedence over all the others and they would disobey the Sabbath instructions of rest in order to accomplish the greater law; the greater sign. Which is better? Which is really more important?
“What Christ was teaching them was there was something bigger than their religious ceremonies: ‘Boy, when you break the religious rules of people . . .’ There’s no hatred like religious hatred and be it a pope or a Protestant or Imam, there’s no hatred, no persecution so fierce as that fired by a zeal for God and a zeal for ‘what’s right’ as you want it to be, as your religion says.”
Jordan says, “Being put out of the synagogue was a fearful thing for these Jews. In Luke 9, when Jesus began to tell His apostles about His going to the Cross, one of the things He says is He’s going to be rejected of the elders.
“That’s saying, ‘You’re not a part of Israel.’ When you did that to a Jew you completely cut his whole hope; his whole identity. All of his connection with his family and his heritage; you cut it away. They were going to hate them so much. I mean that favored nation held together. They struggled together; they stayed together. They’re going to put these guys out.
“Then He says, ‘Not only will they put you out of the synagogue, thinking they are doing God’s service (‘We’re serving God by putting you out’) they’re going to kill you!’
“That’s not just hatred and rejection; that’s physical attack that winds up in your death, and before they get you dead, they do all the things necessary to get you dead. They didn’t come up and shoot people because they didn’t have guns back then. They stoned them.
“It takes a little bit of time to stone somebody to death. I was reading an article the other day about how difficult it is to kill somebody by strangling them. You can shoot of knife somebody, but to strangle them isn’t just that you have to physically overpower them, which you do, but you literally have to hold them until their very life ebbs out of them.
“It takes more than physical strength; it takes a psychological toughness, meanness, hatred, anger, passion, whatever it is, because you have to hold them to the point where they don’t breathe anymore. In your hands you literally feel it and you literally feel it go away.
“You see, killing people is not…modern American Gentiles have made killing so easy. We send an airplane at seven miles up into the air and drop a bomb on somebody. Where the bomb lands is terrible but the dude that dropped the bomb goes back home and eats supper and goes to bed and never thinks about it.
“If that same guy had to put his hands around the neck of the woman that his bomb destroyed and squeezed the life out of them, well there’d be a different kind of situation I bet.
“One of the things the Gentiles do is they constantly become better and better at killing people. We’re talking about modern science and the improvement of things, and you know what, every modern advancement and technology has been used, not just for the good of mankind, but to make it easier to kill people. You name it! In fact, most of the technological advancements that trickle down to you and me in life comes from military advancements where they’re trying to stay ahead of the other guy so ‘he can’t kill me; I can kill him first!’
*****
“But these guys are doing this because they thinking they’re serving God. This murderous rage where they’re going to kill you. You’ll see it in the Book of Acts. Acts 4-5. Verse 5:29 says, 29] Then Peter and the other apostles answered and said, We ought to obey God rather than men.
[30] The God of our fathers raised up Jesus, whom ye slew and hanged on a tree.
“Because Peter and John had healed that man at the temple in Acts 3 they got called before the religious leaders and told, ‘Don’t do that again; you filled the city with this man’s doctrine,’ and because they kept preaching about the Lord Jesus Christ, they get called in again.
“Acts 5:28: ‘Saying, Did not we straitly command you that ye should not teach in this name? and, behold, ye have filled Jerusalem with your doctrine, and intend to bring this man's blood upon us.’
“When they murdered Him they said, ‘Let his blood be on us.’ Pilot had the big ceremony where he washed his hands of the blood of this innocent man. They said, ‘Let his blood be on us.’ But now, when the blood guiltiness is laid at their feet . . . You see the Cross wasn’t good news to them. There’s no message of love and forgiveness of enemies and sinners there in that for them. They’re mad!
“You see, when men contradict what God says, who do you obey? You obey God. Now, if the rulers tell you don’t do something God says to do, and you go ahead and obey God, that means the rulers might come down on you. You’re not doing it to be rebellious against rulers; you’re doing it to be faithful to God.
“Somebody says, ‘Well, I thought you were supposed to be subject to the powers that be? Well, you are, but duties never conflict. And you can’t take one verse of scripture and sit it up against another verse of scripture, and say, ‘Because of this verse you have to deny that verse.’ Duties don’t conflict. And when God tells you to do something, you do what God tells you.
“It’s like back in John 9 with the Pharisees arguing, ‘You healed a guy on the Sabbath. You made him see on the Sabbath. How dare you! Don’t you know what happens to people who work on the Sabbath day?!’ You remember what Jesus told them back there? ‘Well, you circumcise people on the Sabbath day.’
“Paul said, ‘I was circumcised the eighth day.’ Why’s that important? Lev. 12 says when a little boy was born on his eighth day he was to be circumcised and it didn’t make any difference if that day happened on the Sabbath day or not. Now there are two ceremonial laws. There’s nothing morally connected with the Sabbath day or circumcision. They were picture doctrines. They pictured something. A moral commandment would be like ‘Thou shalt not kill.’
“What happens when two ceremonies conflict? One of them took precedence over the other and they all knew it. They knew the circumcision took precedence over all the others and they would disobey the Sabbath instructions of rest in order to accomplish the greater law; the greater sign. Which is better? Which is really more important?
“What Christ was teaching them was there was something bigger than their religious ceremonies: ‘Boy, when you break the religious rules of people . . .’ There’s no hatred like religious hatred and be it a pope or a Protestant or Imam, there’s no hatred, no persecution so fierce as that fired by a zeal for God and a zeal for ‘what’s right’ as you want it to be, as your religion says.”
Saturday, March 24, 2012
Doubling up
Jordan says, “What did God do with Job in the end? He turned His captivity. You got 41 chapters of captivity and then ‘BANG!’ the Lord came and turned it: ‘Just be patient because in the end I’m gonna turn your captivity.’ Now that expression, ‘turn the captivity of Job,’ is a fascinating one.
“In Deuteronomy, the expression is lifted right out of the Book of Job, which was on the table right in front of Moses when he wrote. Moses brings the children of Israel the second time to the door of the Promised Land. The new generation is there. The former generation that came to Kadesh Barnea, and refused to go in, died in the wilderness. The generation that was innocent, those 19 and under, are the leaders now and they’re ready to go in under Joshua.
“God, through Moses, makes what we call the ‘Palestinian Covenant.’ He reiterates his intention to bring Israel into the land, plant them in the land, and make them the head of the nations, thereby accomplishing his purpose in Israel and in her land.
“God is going to do for Israel in the future, at the end of ‘the day of the Lord,’ exactly what He did for Job at the end of the Book of Job. Job is a picture, or a type, of the Believing Remnant of Israel in ‘the last day,’ in ‘the day of the Lord.’
“And just as Job is in satanic captivity, Israel is in satanic captivity. Just as God turned the captivity of Job, He turns Israel’s captivity.
“Psalm 14. Psalm 126. You go through a concordance and find these passages all through your Bible. What He does for Job He’s going to do for Israel in her kingdom.
Isaiah 11:10-11.
“You notice in Job 42:10 it says He ‘turned his captivity’ and gave him twice as much as he had before. Isaiah 61:7. You know in verse 1 and 2 of Luke 4, the Lord Jesus Christ, and He ends the quote in the middle of verse 2 because He says, ‘This day is the Scripture fulfilled in your ears.’
So the first verse, and half of the second verse, is the first coming of Christ. Then the second half of the verse 2 is the Second Coming of Christ, so verse 3 and on look to the Second Coming of Christ.
“Verse 6-7 of Isaiah 61 says, ‘But ye shall be named the Priests of the LORD: men shall call you the Ministers of our God: ye shall eat the riches of the Gentiles, and in their glory shall ye boast yourselves.
[7] For your shame ye shall have double; and for confusion they shall rejoice in their portion: therefore in their land they shall possess the double: everlasting joy shall be unto them.’
“You see, folks, God gives Israel back double for their trouble just like He did with Job. Job is a picture, a type, a parallel of the tribulation saint, and the Book of Job, just as Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes and the Song of Solomon do, has a specific role to play with Israel and the Believing Remnant of Israel and securing their heart in the last days.
“Job explains the plight and why the things that are happening to Israel are happening to them and how in the end, if they just endure and be patient and see to the end, God’s going to restore them.
“Job 42:11. By the way, there’s one thing in this passage Job doesn’t get back. He doesn’t get his wife back. She’s never listed there. But he does get the sons and daughters back. Well, if his sons and daughters were killed, and now he’s got them back but he doesn’t have a wife, how’d he get ‘em back?!
“You remember what Job believed in? He said, ‘Though worms eat my body yet I know one thing. My Redeemer lives, and in my flesh I’ll stand on the earth and see Him.’ That’s the resurrection! Just like the Lord blesses his latter end, at the latter end when Job gets that twice as many back, he gets back his boys. There’s a resurrection at the end of Job.
“Verse 14. Now if he lived 140 years after that and he got back double, well half of 140 is 70, so he would have been 70 years old when the things that hit him in the book hit him, and that fits with him having 10 grown kids in chapter 1. So Job lived a total of 210 years, or three times 70.
“Notice verses 13- 14 he renames these girls. Each one of them is given a name. Jemima means ‘fair as day, or there’s a day coming; the Second Advent when the Son of righteousness ‘arises with healing in His wings.’
“Kezia is one of the perfumes used in Psalm 45 for the coronation of the Messiah. The last one, Keren-happuch, means ‘a horn of paint.’ You say, ‘Well what in the world does that mean?!’ That means she’s all prepared. And so these are things that are descriptions of what the Believing Remnant is going to be transformed into when Christ comes.
*****
“Job also receives a new name. The reason Job gave those new names to his girls is identified in Rev. 2:17 and Isaiah 62:6.
“Just like God turned the captivity of Job and restored him back double, and just like his latter end was better than his former, and just like he got blessings from all of his friends and blessed them, and just like he had a resurrection of his lost people, and just like he renamed his kids, God gave Job a new name.
“What was Job’s last name? Gen 46:13. Now look at I Chronicles (the Book of Genealogy) 7:1. By the way, the name Job means ‘persecuted one.’ In Genesis, it’s Job ‘the persecuted one.’ In I Chronicles it’s Jashub. That name means ‘the returned one; he returns.’ God turned the captivity of Job.
“That name is only found one other time in the Bible. Only one other person carries this name and it’s one of Isaiah’s children. You recall in chapter 8 of Isaiah God gave Isaiah a kid and said, ‘Name the kid to indicate what’s going to happen to Israel in the future.’ God had Isaiah name his children just like He did Hosea in order to demonstrate and educate to Israel what was going to happen to them.
“Isaiah 7:3 says, ‘Then said the LORD unto Isaiah, Go forth now to meet Ahaz, thou, and Shear-Jashub thy son, at the end of the conduit of the upper pool in the highway of the fuller's field.’ Isaiah’s boy has the word ‘Shear’ put in front of it. Now, Shear is the Hebrew word for ‘a remnant.’ Shear-jashub means ‘a remnant returns.’
"You see, Job has a new name given to him for he transformed from ‘the persecuted one,’ and at the end of Job, Job becomes a picture, or a type of the remnant who returns. The Lord turns again the captivity of Job, and the significance of the Book of Job is he’s in exactly the same situation the Little Flock will be in the day of wrath, when Israel’s name will be Job, ‘the persecuted one,’ but will be changed to Jashub. In fact, Shear-jashub, means ‘the remnant that returns.’ ”
“In Deuteronomy, the expression is lifted right out of the Book of Job, which was on the table right in front of Moses when he wrote. Moses brings the children of Israel the second time to the door of the Promised Land. The new generation is there. The former generation that came to Kadesh Barnea, and refused to go in, died in the wilderness. The generation that was innocent, those 19 and under, are the leaders now and they’re ready to go in under Joshua.
“God, through Moses, makes what we call the ‘Palestinian Covenant.’ He reiterates his intention to bring Israel into the land, plant them in the land, and make them the head of the nations, thereby accomplishing his purpose in Israel and in her land.
“God is going to do for Israel in the future, at the end of ‘the day of the Lord,’ exactly what He did for Job at the end of the Book of Job. Job is a picture, or a type, of the Believing Remnant of Israel in ‘the last day,’ in ‘the day of the Lord.’
“And just as Job is in satanic captivity, Israel is in satanic captivity. Just as God turned the captivity of Job, He turns Israel’s captivity.
“Psalm 14. Psalm 126. You go through a concordance and find these passages all through your Bible. What He does for Job He’s going to do for Israel in her kingdom.
Isaiah 11:10-11.
“You notice in Job 42:10 it says He ‘turned his captivity’ and gave him twice as much as he had before. Isaiah 61:7. You know in verse 1 and 2 of Luke 4, the Lord Jesus Christ, and He ends the quote in the middle of verse 2 because He says, ‘This day is the Scripture fulfilled in your ears.’
So the first verse, and half of the second verse, is the first coming of Christ. Then the second half of the verse 2 is the Second Coming of Christ, so verse 3 and on look to the Second Coming of Christ.
“Verse 6-7 of Isaiah 61 says, ‘But ye shall be named the Priests of the LORD: men shall call you the Ministers of our God: ye shall eat the riches of the Gentiles, and in their glory shall ye boast yourselves.
[7] For your shame ye shall have double; and for confusion they shall rejoice in their portion: therefore in their land they shall possess the double: everlasting joy shall be unto them.’
“You see, folks, God gives Israel back double for their trouble just like He did with Job. Job is a picture, a type, a parallel of the tribulation saint, and the Book of Job, just as Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes and the Song of Solomon do, has a specific role to play with Israel and the Believing Remnant of Israel and securing their heart in the last days.
“Job explains the plight and why the things that are happening to Israel are happening to them and how in the end, if they just endure and be patient and see to the end, God’s going to restore them.
“Job 42:11. By the way, there’s one thing in this passage Job doesn’t get back. He doesn’t get his wife back. She’s never listed there. But he does get the sons and daughters back. Well, if his sons and daughters were killed, and now he’s got them back but he doesn’t have a wife, how’d he get ‘em back?!
“You remember what Job believed in? He said, ‘Though worms eat my body yet I know one thing. My Redeemer lives, and in my flesh I’ll stand on the earth and see Him.’ That’s the resurrection! Just like the Lord blesses his latter end, at the latter end when Job gets that twice as many back, he gets back his boys. There’s a resurrection at the end of Job.
“Verse 14. Now if he lived 140 years after that and he got back double, well half of 140 is 70, so he would have been 70 years old when the things that hit him in the book hit him, and that fits with him having 10 grown kids in chapter 1. So Job lived a total of 210 years, or three times 70.
“Notice verses 13- 14 he renames these girls. Each one of them is given a name. Jemima means ‘fair as day, or there’s a day coming; the Second Advent when the Son of righteousness ‘arises with healing in His wings.’
“Kezia is one of the perfumes used in Psalm 45 for the coronation of the Messiah. The last one, Keren-happuch, means ‘a horn of paint.’ You say, ‘Well what in the world does that mean?!’ That means she’s all prepared. And so these are things that are descriptions of what the Believing Remnant is going to be transformed into when Christ comes.
*****
“Job also receives a new name. The reason Job gave those new names to his girls is identified in Rev. 2:17 and Isaiah 62:6.
“Just like God turned the captivity of Job and restored him back double, and just like his latter end was better than his former, and just like he got blessings from all of his friends and blessed them, and just like he had a resurrection of his lost people, and just like he renamed his kids, God gave Job a new name.
“What was Job’s last name? Gen 46:13. Now look at I Chronicles (the Book of Genealogy) 7:1. By the way, the name Job means ‘persecuted one.’ In Genesis, it’s Job ‘the persecuted one.’ In I Chronicles it’s Jashub. That name means ‘the returned one; he returns.’ God turned the captivity of Job.
“That name is only found one other time in the Bible. Only one other person carries this name and it’s one of Isaiah’s children. You recall in chapter 8 of Isaiah God gave Isaiah a kid and said, ‘Name the kid to indicate what’s going to happen to Israel in the future.’ God had Isaiah name his children just like He did Hosea in order to demonstrate and educate to Israel what was going to happen to them.
“Isaiah 7:3 says, ‘Then said the LORD unto Isaiah, Go forth now to meet Ahaz, thou, and Shear-Jashub thy son, at the end of the conduit of the upper pool in the highway of the fuller's field.’ Isaiah’s boy has the word ‘Shear’ put in front of it. Now, Shear is the Hebrew word for ‘a remnant.’ Shear-jashub means ‘a remnant returns.’
"You see, Job has a new name given to him for he transformed from ‘the persecuted one,’ and at the end of Job, Job becomes a picture, or a type of the remnant who returns. The Lord turns again the captivity of Job, and the significance of the Book of Job is he’s in exactly the same situation the Little Flock will be in the day of wrath, when Israel’s name will be Job, ‘the persecuted one,’ but will be changed to Jashub. In fact, Shear-jashub, means ‘the remnant that returns.’ ”
Wednesday, March 21, 2012
Within a weary land
Jordan says, “You look at all the conflicts in the world today and you come to that verse and you say, ‘You know, there is an answer!’
“Now the great climactic event that moves us from the kingdoms of this world to becoming the kingdoms of our Lord and His Christ, is Armageddon, which is a Bible event.
“It’s actually not as pervasive in Scripture as it is in discussions about it. There’s only one passage that uses the term and talks about it by name although there are many passages that describe events associated with it.
“The great climactic battle at the end of the 70th week of Daniel when Jesus Christ comes back in flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God, when the Son of Man shall come in His glory with all the angels with Him to sit upon the thrones of His glory, takes place around this event called Armageddon.
“Rev. 16:13 says, ‘And I saw three unclean spirits like frogs come out of the mouth of the dragon, and out of the mouth of the beast, and out of the mouth of the false prophet.’ Just put that picture in your mind. You got the dragon burping out three frogs. Frogs in the Bible are unclean. You remember God plagued Israel with frogs? So these are all connected with things in prophecy.
“You’ve got the unholy trinity there! The dragon is Satan (the power behind the throne), the beast is the Antichrist (the political leader the world submits to) and the false prophet is the religious leader (who points people to the political leader). Oftentimes people say the pope is the Antichrist but he couldn’t be because the Antichrist is not a religious leader.
“Rev. 16:14 goes on, ‘For they are the spirits of devils, working miracles, which go forth unto the kings of the earth and of the whole world, to gather them to the battle of that great day of God Almighty.’ When you see something you think is a miracle, or you want God to work a miracle in your life, don’t forget that verse, will you?
“II Thessalonians 2, in talking about the Antichrist and his coming, says, ‘Even him, whose coming is after the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders,
[10] And with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved.’ ”
*****
Here’s a great old Hymn I had forgotten existed:
Beneath the cross of Jesus
I fain would take my stand,
the shadow of a mighty rock
within a weary land;
a home within the wilderness,
a rest upon the way,
from the burning of the noontide heat,
and the burden of the day.
2. Upon that cross of Jesus
mine eye at times can see
the very dying form of One
who suffered there for me;
and from my stricken heart with tears
two wonders I confess:
the wonders of redeeming love
and my unworthiness.
3. I take, O cross, thy shadow
for my abiding place;
I ask no other sunshine than
the sunshine of his face;
content to let the world go by,
to know no gain nor loss,
my sinful self my only shame,
my glory all the cross.
“Now the great climactic event that moves us from the kingdoms of this world to becoming the kingdoms of our Lord and His Christ, is Armageddon, which is a Bible event.
“It’s actually not as pervasive in Scripture as it is in discussions about it. There’s only one passage that uses the term and talks about it by name although there are many passages that describe events associated with it.
“The great climactic battle at the end of the 70th week of Daniel when Jesus Christ comes back in flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God, when the Son of Man shall come in His glory with all the angels with Him to sit upon the thrones of His glory, takes place around this event called Armageddon.
“Rev. 16:13 says, ‘And I saw three unclean spirits like frogs come out of the mouth of the dragon, and out of the mouth of the beast, and out of the mouth of the false prophet.’ Just put that picture in your mind. You got the dragon burping out three frogs. Frogs in the Bible are unclean. You remember God plagued Israel with frogs? So these are all connected with things in prophecy.
“You’ve got the unholy trinity there! The dragon is Satan (the power behind the throne), the beast is the Antichrist (the political leader the world submits to) and the false prophet is the religious leader (who points people to the political leader). Oftentimes people say the pope is the Antichrist but he couldn’t be because the Antichrist is not a religious leader.
“Rev. 16:14 goes on, ‘For they are the spirits of devils, working miracles, which go forth unto the kings of the earth and of the whole world, to gather them to the battle of that great day of God Almighty.’ When you see something you think is a miracle, or you want God to work a miracle in your life, don’t forget that verse, will you?
“II Thessalonians 2, in talking about the Antichrist and his coming, says, ‘Even him, whose coming is after the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders,
[10] And with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved.’ ”
*****
Here’s a great old Hymn I had forgotten existed:
Beneath the cross of Jesus
I fain would take my stand,
the shadow of a mighty rock
within a weary land;
a home within the wilderness,
a rest upon the way,
from the burning of the noontide heat,
and the burden of the day.
2. Upon that cross of Jesus
mine eye at times can see
the very dying form of One
who suffered there for me;
and from my stricken heart with tears
two wonders I confess:
the wonders of redeeming love
and my unworthiness.
3. I take, O cross, thy shadow
for my abiding place;
I ask no other sunshine than
the sunshine of his face;
content to let the world go by,
to know no gain nor loss,
my sinful self my only shame,
my glory all the cross.
Saturday, March 17, 2012
All in due time
Isaiah coined the term “the day of the Lord,’ and the term “that day” was coined by Moses. All through the major and the minor prophets (Isaiah to Malachi), the expression “that day” is used over and over, consistently as a reference to “the day of the Lord.”
Isaiah 2 says, “Enter into the rock, and hide thee in the dust, for fear of the LORD, and for the glory of his majesty.
[11] The lofty looks of man shall be humbled, and the haughtiness of men shall be bowed down, and the LORD alone shall be exalted in that day.
[12] For the day of the LORD of hosts shall be upon every one that is proud and lofty, and upon every one that is lifted up; and he shall be brought low:
The chapter goes on, “And they shall go into the holes of the rocks, and into the caves of the earth, for fear of the LORD, and for the glory of his majesty, when he ariseth to shake terribly the earth.
[20] In that day a man shall cast his idols of silver, and his idols of gold, which they made each one for himself to worship, to the moles and to the bats;
[21] To go into the clefts of the rocks, and into the tops of the ragged rocks, for fear of the LORD, and for the glory of his majesty, when he ariseth to shake terribly the earth.”
Ezekiel 30:1 says, [1] The word of the LORD came again unto me, saying,
[2] Son of man, prophesy and say, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Howl ye, Woe worth the day
[3] For the day is near, even the day of the LORD is near, a cloudy day; it shall be the time of the heathen.”
Jordan explains, “The day of the Lord begins when the Lord arises to come and shake the earth. Notice verse 3 is fascinating because there is the origin of the term Jesus used in Luke 21 when He talked about ‘the time of the Gentiles.’ When Jesus said that He was referring back to this thing here.
“What you learn in Daniel 2 with the image that Nebuchadnezzar sees, is the Gentile nations that are going to be given charge over the earth from the time Israel is sent into captivity to the time when Jesus comes back. So in that vision given to Nebuchadnezzar, you get a picture of the course of the times of the Gentiles.
“Verse 10 says, ‘The Chaldeans answered before the king, and said, There is not a man upon the earth that can shew the king's matter: therefore there is no king, lord, nor ruler, that asked such things at any magician, or astrologer, or Chaldean.’
“So when Nebby comes in, Jeremiah 25 calls him ‘my chosen one’; he’s God’s instrument to bring judgment and wrath upon a whole bunch of different people but especially on the nation Israel and it begins the times of the Gentiles.
“The idea is, ‘Nebby’s coming to get you dudes.’ You don’t think he’s coming but he is and he does, and when he does, what is it? ‘Even the day of the Lord.’ Israel is proud, haughty and arrogant and God says, ‘You’re going to be brought low. I’m going to put you under the heel of the Gentiles.’
“You go back to Leviticus 3 and you can see why he does it. Deuteronomy 31. It all goes back to Moses and the curses and blessings he promised them back here.
“People argue, ‘When is ‘the day of the Lord,’ and people say it’s just His Advent and maybe it starts at the middle of the week and maybe it starts at the beginning of the 70th week.
“The day of the Lord began at the beginning of the Babylonian captivity as far as God’s concerned. Now the intensified form of it is over at the end. There’s a time schedule and that’s what the book of Daniel is all about. It’s to explain to them, ‘Here’s this intensive judgment at the beginning and then there’s going to be a time schedule out here for the sins and when the time comes, God’s going to get you!’
“What you have in Leviticus 23 is when Israel came out of Egypt, before they wander in the wilderness, and it’s repeated in Deuteronomy 38 years after they’ve wandered for those years. Sometimes you forget in Deuteronomy, the second giving of the law, that Moses is at the end of his life, at the end of Israel’s wandering in the wilderness, just before they’re going to go into the Promised Land, and he’s talking to a new generation.
“Those he brought out of Egypt they all died in the wilderness and the younger ones are now in charge and he reminds them about what he taught them back there.
"In Deuteronomy 28-31, he reminds them of what he teaches them back in Leviticus 26 about those courses of judgment but now, instead of just giving it to them doctrinally and, ‘This is the way it’s going to be if you do this,’ now he says, ‘You remember you did that and God did this. That’s why.’ They’ve got 40 years almost of history that he can flesh it out with.
“He reports in chapter 31, ‘[15] And the LORD appeared in the tabernacle in a pillar of a cloud: and the pillar of the cloud stood over the door of the tabernacle.
[16] And the LORD said unto Moses, Behold, thou shalt sleep with thy fathers; and this people will rise up, and go a whoring after the gods of the strangers of the land, whither they go to be among them, and will forsake me, and break my covenant which I have made with them.
[17] Then my anger shall be kindled against them in that day, and I will forsake them, and I will hide my face from them, and they shall be devoured, and many evils and troubles shall befall them; so that they will say in that day. Are not these evils come upon us, because our God is not among us?
[18] And I will surely hide my face in that day for all the evils which they shall have wrought, in that they are turned unto other gods.’
“What a prediction! ‘Then my anger shall be kindled against them in that day.’ Now that’s where that term ‘that day’ comes from originally. ‘That day when I’m going to settle this issue of their rebellion!’
“Lamentation 1:12 says, ‘Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by? behold, and see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow, which is done unto me, wherewith the LORD hath afflicted me in the day of his fierce anger.’
“Does that sound like a good thing to do? Got a bunch of laments. That’s why Jeremiah’s called ‘the weeping prophet.’ This whole book is one long dirge about the destruction of Jerusalem. Historically by Nebuchadnezzar, and prophetically by Christ at His Second Advent.
"Notice how he describes the beginning of the captivity under the heel of Nebuchadnezzar. It’s 'the day of his fierce anger.'
“You go on down through there and what you see is the Lord is destroying Israel. He’s bringing Nebuchadnezzar in. 2:17. I read that so you understand that when the captivity began, they understood it was the wrath of God; the anger of God on Israel and it was the beginning of the day of His wrath. ‘The day of the Lord’s’ been around a long time.
“Now there are some aspects in connection with the Advent; it’s called ‘the great and notable day of the Lord’ when the Lord shows Himself to be terrible. An intensified form of it. But there are a lot of phases in ‘the day of the Lord.’ And that’s why Paul lays those things out in the career there of the Antichrist in II Thessalonians 2.
“The point in verse 2 when Paul says, ‘Don’t be shaken,’ they were misidentifying what was going on there. Every time Paul used the term ‘the day of Christ,’ and taught about it, it was a happy time.”
*****
John, in the introduction to his book, says in verse 17, and this is John the Baptist’s actual testimony, “For the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.”
“You can give something to someone from a distance and in the law, distance was always the issue. In the law, there was a separation. The people stood without. The Gentiles couldn’t even come close. The nation Israel stood without and only the priests went into the temple and then only one man of all of Israel, once a year, went into the very presence of God in the Holy of Holies.
“The law required a one-two-three step separation. The law was given by Moses. It was SENT by Moses, but grace and truth CAME by Jesus Christ. You know what that is? You’re personally present. When you come somewhere, your presence arrives there. Grace wasn’t sent, you see. Grace CAME in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. Grace isn’t given from afar; grace is something that is up close and personal because of the rise, and it focuses and comes in Jesus Christ.
“This is not some system of doctrine; some theology that you get from a distance in that you hold out for it there. This is something that COMES right in.
“Romans 3:24, I think, is the great verse in the Scripture that defines the grace of God for you. God’s grace is what He’s able to bestow upon you, in unmerited favor. It’s all that God can do for you through the work of the Lord Jesus Christ at Calvary. Everything He won there through this redemption that’s in Christ Jesus comes under this category of grace.
******
“For years I’ve thought about it as . . . people talk about God’s love and ‘God so loved the world.’ ‘God commended His love toward us. A man wrote a book recently called, ‘Love Wins,’ and the idea is that in the end, God’s love is going to reconcile everybody back to Him, even the devil. And you think, ‘Wait a minute! That might be a little too much!’
“Love never lets you go. Love will never let you down. But love also doesn’t let you off. When you let someone off from responsibility for their choices and actions, you’re called an enabler. You’re not a friend. Love will stand there with you as you have to deal with the problem, but it will require you, and equip you, to deal with the problem. It won’t just push it under the rug like it isn’t real.
“He loves you with an everlasting love but there’s a problem. ‘Through the disobedience of one.’ Sin is rebellion against God—‘I’ll do it my way, not your way.’
"God will love you in spite of your sin but love isn’t all that God is. God is righteous, God is just. His throne is established in His righteousness and His justice. These are the personal attributes of God that establish what He does and who He is.
“ ‘In Christ are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.’ The wisdom of God devised a plan that He called grace. You see, grace is not one of the characteristics of God; grace is the plan of God whereby His character can include you too. Grace is all that God’s wisdom has designed to accomplish our redemption and life. So His attributes are not in conflict with one another; they work together and so the wisdom of God made the plan.”
Isaiah 2 says, “Enter into the rock, and hide thee in the dust, for fear of the LORD, and for the glory of his majesty.
[11] The lofty looks of man shall be humbled, and the haughtiness of men shall be bowed down, and the LORD alone shall be exalted in that day.
[12] For the day of the LORD of hosts shall be upon every one that is proud and lofty, and upon every one that is lifted up; and he shall be brought low:
The chapter goes on, “And they shall go into the holes of the rocks, and into the caves of the earth, for fear of the LORD, and for the glory of his majesty, when he ariseth to shake terribly the earth.
[20] In that day a man shall cast his idols of silver, and his idols of gold, which they made each one for himself to worship, to the moles and to the bats;
[21] To go into the clefts of the rocks, and into the tops of the ragged rocks, for fear of the LORD, and for the glory of his majesty, when he ariseth to shake terribly the earth.”
Ezekiel 30:1 says, [1] The word of the LORD came again unto me, saying,
[2] Son of man, prophesy and say, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Howl ye, Woe worth the day
[3] For the day is near, even the day of the LORD is near, a cloudy day; it shall be the time of the heathen.”
Jordan explains, “The day of the Lord begins when the Lord arises to come and shake the earth. Notice verse 3 is fascinating because there is the origin of the term Jesus used in Luke 21 when He talked about ‘the time of the Gentiles.’ When Jesus said that He was referring back to this thing here.
“What you learn in Daniel 2 with the image that Nebuchadnezzar sees, is the Gentile nations that are going to be given charge over the earth from the time Israel is sent into captivity to the time when Jesus comes back. So in that vision given to Nebuchadnezzar, you get a picture of the course of the times of the Gentiles.
“Verse 10 says, ‘The Chaldeans answered before the king, and said, There is not a man upon the earth that can shew the king's matter: therefore there is no king, lord, nor ruler, that asked such things at any magician, or astrologer, or Chaldean.’
“So when Nebby comes in, Jeremiah 25 calls him ‘my chosen one’; he’s God’s instrument to bring judgment and wrath upon a whole bunch of different people but especially on the nation Israel and it begins the times of the Gentiles.
“The idea is, ‘Nebby’s coming to get you dudes.’ You don’t think he’s coming but he is and he does, and when he does, what is it? ‘Even the day of the Lord.’ Israel is proud, haughty and arrogant and God says, ‘You’re going to be brought low. I’m going to put you under the heel of the Gentiles.’
“You go back to Leviticus 3 and you can see why he does it. Deuteronomy 31. It all goes back to Moses and the curses and blessings he promised them back here.
“People argue, ‘When is ‘the day of the Lord,’ and people say it’s just His Advent and maybe it starts at the middle of the week and maybe it starts at the beginning of the 70th week.
“The day of the Lord began at the beginning of the Babylonian captivity as far as God’s concerned. Now the intensified form of it is over at the end. There’s a time schedule and that’s what the book of Daniel is all about. It’s to explain to them, ‘Here’s this intensive judgment at the beginning and then there’s going to be a time schedule out here for the sins and when the time comes, God’s going to get you!’
“What you have in Leviticus 23 is when Israel came out of Egypt, before they wander in the wilderness, and it’s repeated in Deuteronomy 38 years after they’ve wandered for those years. Sometimes you forget in Deuteronomy, the second giving of the law, that Moses is at the end of his life, at the end of Israel’s wandering in the wilderness, just before they’re going to go into the Promised Land, and he’s talking to a new generation.
“Those he brought out of Egypt they all died in the wilderness and the younger ones are now in charge and he reminds them about what he taught them back there.
"In Deuteronomy 28-31, he reminds them of what he teaches them back in Leviticus 26 about those courses of judgment but now, instead of just giving it to them doctrinally and, ‘This is the way it’s going to be if you do this,’ now he says, ‘You remember you did that and God did this. That’s why.’ They’ve got 40 years almost of history that he can flesh it out with.
“He reports in chapter 31, ‘[15] And the LORD appeared in the tabernacle in a pillar of a cloud: and the pillar of the cloud stood over the door of the tabernacle.
[16] And the LORD said unto Moses, Behold, thou shalt sleep with thy fathers; and this people will rise up, and go a whoring after the gods of the strangers of the land, whither they go to be among them, and will forsake me, and break my covenant which I have made with them.
[17] Then my anger shall be kindled against them in that day, and I will forsake them, and I will hide my face from them, and they shall be devoured, and many evils and troubles shall befall them; so that they will say in that day. Are not these evils come upon us, because our God is not among us?
[18] And I will surely hide my face in that day for all the evils which they shall have wrought, in that they are turned unto other gods.’
“What a prediction! ‘Then my anger shall be kindled against them in that day.’ Now that’s where that term ‘that day’ comes from originally. ‘That day when I’m going to settle this issue of their rebellion!’
“Lamentation 1:12 says, ‘Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by? behold, and see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow, which is done unto me, wherewith the LORD hath afflicted me in the day of his fierce anger.’
“Does that sound like a good thing to do? Got a bunch of laments. That’s why Jeremiah’s called ‘the weeping prophet.’ This whole book is one long dirge about the destruction of Jerusalem. Historically by Nebuchadnezzar, and prophetically by Christ at His Second Advent.
"Notice how he describes the beginning of the captivity under the heel of Nebuchadnezzar. It’s 'the day of his fierce anger.'
“You go on down through there and what you see is the Lord is destroying Israel. He’s bringing Nebuchadnezzar in. 2:17. I read that so you understand that when the captivity began, they understood it was the wrath of God; the anger of God on Israel and it was the beginning of the day of His wrath. ‘The day of the Lord’s’ been around a long time.
“Now there are some aspects in connection with the Advent; it’s called ‘the great and notable day of the Lord’ when the Lord shows Himself to be terrible. An intensified form of it. But there are a lot of phases in ‘the day of the Lord.’ And that’s why Paul lays those things out in the career there of the Antichrist in II Thessalonians 2.
“The point in verse 2 when Paul says, ‘Don’t be shaken,’ they were misidentifying what was going on there. Every time Paul used the term ‘the day of Christ,’ and taught about it, it was a happy time.”
*****
John, in the introduction to his book, says in verse 17, and this is John the Baptist’s actual testimony, “For the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.”
“You can give something to someone from a distance and in the law, distance was always the issue. In the law, there was a separation. The people stood without. The Gentiles couldn’t even come close. The nation Israel stood without and only the priests went into the temple and then only one man of all of Israel, once a year, went into the very presence of God in the Holy of Holies.
“The law required a one-two-three step separation. The law was given by Moses. It was SENT by Moses, but grace and truth CAME by Jesus Christ. You know what that is? You’re personally present. When you come somewhere, your presence arrives there. Grace wasn’t sent, you see. Grace CAME in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. Grace isn’t given from afar; grace is something that is up close and personal because of the rise, and it focuses and comes in Jesus Christ.
“This is not some system of doctrine; some theology that you get from a distance in that you hold out for it there. This is something that COMES right in.
“Romans 3:24, I think, is the great verse in the Scripture that defines the grace of God for you. God’s grace is what He’s able to bestow upon you, in unmerited favor. It’s all that God can do for you through the work of the Lord Jesus Christ at Calvary. Everything He won there through this redemption that’s in Christ Jesus comes under this category of grace.
******
“For years I’ve thought about it as . . . people talk about God’s love and ‘God so loved the world.’ ‘God commended His love toward us. A man wrote a book recently called, ‘Love Wins,’ and the idea is that in the end, God’s love is going to reconcile everybody back to Him, even the devil. And you think, ‘Wait a minute! That might be a little too much!’
“Love never lets you go. Love will never let you down. But love also doesn’t let you off. When you let someone off from responsibility for their choices and actions, you’re called an enabler. You’re not a friend. Love will stand there with you as you have to deal with the problem, but it will require you, and equip you, to deal with the problem. It won’t just push it under the rug like it isn’t real.
“He loves you with an everlasting love but there’s a problem. ‘Through the disobedience of one.’ Sin is rebellion against God—‘I’ll do it my way, not your way.’
"God will love you in spite of your sin but love isn’t all that God is. God is righteous, God is just. His throne is established in His righteousness and His justice. These are the personal attributes of God that establish what He does and who He is.
“ ‘In Christ are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.’ The wisdom of God devised a plan that He called grace. You see, grace is not one of the characteristics of God; grace is the plan of God whereby His character can include you too. Grace is all that God’s wisdom has designed to accomplish our redemption and life. So His attributes are not in conflict with one another; they work together and so the wisdom of God made the plan.”
Thursday, March 15, 2012
Bigger and bigger
In Psalm 132-134, you see how that this kingdom that’s there, the blessing is going to go out from it all the way over the whole earth.
Jordan says, “Psalm 132 is the essence of the Davidic covenant. The promise is, ‘I’ll come and tabernacle in your flesh, David, and I’ll be the messiah to Israel in your flesh.’ David is going to build God a house and God said, ‘You can’t build it. You’re a bloody man. I’ll let your boy build it. But I will build you a house. I’ll come and live in your flesh and of the fruit of thy body will I sit on thy throne.”
“Verse 13-14 says, “For the LORD hath chosen Zion; he hath desired it for his habitation.
[14] This is my rest for ever: here will I dwell; for I have desired it.
“God picked a place on this planet where He was going to live. Then He picked a man and said, ‘I’m going to incarnate myself in your flesh, and when God became flesh, He didn’t become anybody’s flesh. He became flesh of the body and the lineage of David. And then He said, ‘God chose Zion.’
“Here’s a song that David wrote: Psalm 133:1 says, ‘Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity!’
“That’s another one of those verses you see on church bulletins. And that hasn’t got anything to do with people getting along in church. It’s a good idea to get along in church. How beautiful and pleasant for the brethren to gather in unity is Ezekiel 47 when Ezekiel says, ‘God’s going to take two sticks; one the house of Judah, one the house of Israel, and bring them back and heal the breach between them and make them one nation again and they’ll be reunited into one nation again and that day’s going to be like the precious ointment upon the head that ran down upon the beard, even Aaron’s beard and went down to the skirts of his garment.’
“Stones represent the 12 tribes of Israel. And He’s talking about the blessing going all down over and extending all out across all of Israel as the dew of Hermon and as the dew that descended upon the mountains of Zion. God’s blessing is going to go all down through Israel and the whole of the nation is going to experience this blessing that’s just going to get bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger!
“Verse 3 says, ‘For there the LORD commanded the blessing, even life for evermore.’ The blessing’s going to be in Zion where the king lives, where Jesus Christ lives, and then from there it’s just going to go out all over Israel.
“You see it’s going to be the Redeemer who accomplishes this and gives the blessing. It’s going to start in Zion where Christ is and then it’s just going to extend all over the planet. He’s going to be the Blesser of all men.
“The result of that is Psalm 150:6: ‘Let every thing that hath breath praise the LORD. Praise ye the LORD.’ The zenith, the apex, the high point of praise to the Lord will be when He sits as King and Blesser in Zion and His blessings flow out across the earth.
“We now know it’s also going to extend out to the heavenly places. Israel wasn’t aware of that and only functioned in the earth, but the pinnacle of blessing and praising for the Lord comes when He’s the Blesser appointing the blessing and sending it out of Zion.
“So, as you go through the Book of Psalms, please don’t take it just as a daily devotion book. It’s a book of prophetic doctrine focusing on the mechanics of the accomplishment of the Davidic covenant. It explains how Israel, after the plight they find themselves in the Book of Job under satanic captivity, has their captivity turned. How it is that that happened and God blesses them and gives them double and gives them a new name.
“The explanation for the details of the mechanics of that turning of their captivity is found in those five books of the Psalms and those books are written in a way to focus the heart of the believers in Israel on their Messiah in all of those aspects that He will be unto them to keep their heart fixed on Him and when we get to Proverbs you’re going to see how they have wisdom from Him to deal with the details of life wisely, under the covenant of the law.
“In Ecclesiastes, they have an understanding of human viewpoint that’s designed to draw them away from divine wisdom, that only focuses on the sorrow and sore travail, and then in the Song of Solomon you see the attempt of the religious system in apostate Israel to lure away the Believing Remnant from fidelity to her Messiah, to her beloved, and the one thing that she does to remain faithful.”
Jordan says, “Psalm 132 is the essence of the Davidic covenant. The promise is, ‘I’ll come and tabernacle in your flesh, David, and I’ll be the messiah to Israel in your flesh.’ David is going to build God a house and God said, ‘You can’t build it. You’re a bloody man. I’ll let your boy build it. But I will build you a house. I’ll come and live in your flesh and of the fruit of thy body will I sit on thy throne.”
“Verse 13-14 says, “For the LORD hath chosen Zion; he hath desired it for his habitation.
[14] This is my rest for ever: here will I dwell; for I have desired it.
“God picked a place on this planet where He was going to live. Then He picked a man and said, ‘I’m going to incarnate myself in your flesh, and when God became flesh, He didn’t become anybody’s flesh. He became flesh of the body and the lineage of David. And then He said, ‘God chose Zion.’
“Here’s a song that David wrote: Psalm 133:1 says, ‘Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity!’
“That’s another one of those verses you see on church bulletins. And that hasn’t got anything to do with people getting along in church. It’s a good idea to get along in church. How beautiful and pleasant for the brethren to gather in unity is Ezekiel 47 when Ezekiel says, ‘God’s going to take two sticks; one the house of Judah, one the house of Israel, and bring them back and heal the breach between them and make them one nation again and they’ll be reunited into one nation again and that day’s going to be like the precious ointment upon the head that ran down upon the beard, even Aaron’s beard and went down to the skirts of his garment.’
“Stones represent the 12 tribes of Israel. And He’s talking about the blessing going all down over and extending all out across all of Israel as the dew of Hermon and as the dew that descended upon the mountains of Zion. God’s blessing is going to go all down through Israel and the whole of the nation is going to experience this blessing that’s just going to get bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger!
“Verse 3 says, ‘For there the LORD commanded the blessing, even life for evermore.’ The blessing’s going to be in Zion where the king lives, where Jesus Christ lives, and then from there it’s just going to go out all over Israel.
“You see it’s going to be the Redeemer who accomplishes this and gives the blessing. It’s going to start in Zion where Christ is and then it’s just going to extend all over the planet. He’s going to be the Blesser of all men.
“The result of that is Psalm 150:6: ‘Let every thing that hath breath praise the LORD. Praise ye the LORD.’ The zenith, the apex, the high point of praise to the Lord will be when He sits as King and Blesser in Zion and His blessings flow out across the earth.
“We now know it’s also going to extend out to the heavenly places. Israel wasn’t aware of that and only functioned in the earth, but the pinnacle of blessing and praising for the Lord comes when He’s the Blesser appointing the blessing and sending it out of Zion.
“So, as you go through the Book of Psalms, please don’t take it just as a daily devotion book. It’s a book of prophetic doctrine focusing on the mechanics of the accomplishment of the Davidic covenant. It explains how Israel, after the plight they find themselves in the Book of Job under satanic captivity, has their captivity turned. How it is that that happened and God blesses them and gives them double and gives them a new name.
“The explanation for the details of the mechanics of that turning of their captivity is found in those five books of the Psalms and those books are written in a way to focus the heart of the believers in Israel on their Messiah in all of those aspects that He will be unto them to keep their heart fixed on Him and when we get to Proverbs you’re going to see how they have wisdom from Him to deal with the details of life wisely, under the covenant of the law.
“In Ecclesiastes, they have an understanding of human viewpoint that’s designed to draw them away from divine wisdom, that only focuses on the sorrow and sore travail, and then in the Song of Solomon you see the attempt of the religious system in apostate Israel to lure away the Believing Remnant from fidelity to her Messiah, to her beloved, and the one thing that she does to remain faithful.”
Saturday, March 10, 2012
A matter of degrees
God says to Moses in Deuteronomy 31, “Now you teach them this song because it’s going to outline their history and why all these curses are going to come on them.”
In chapter 32, the first 42 verses give the reviews of the indictment against Israel and why they’re going to go through all these courses of judgment.
Verse 43 says, “Rejoice, O ye nations, with his people: for he will avenge the blood of his servants, and will render vengeance to his adversaries, and will be merciful unto his land, and to his people.”
Jordan explains, “The Song of Moses brings Israel all the way through its history to the very point where God’s going to pour out His wrath and avenge His enemies. That’s where you are in Revelation 15. The wrath is fixin’ to be poured out and the last thing that Song of Moses calls for is what’s fixin’ to happen in Revelation 15-19. The vials of the wrath of God are going to be poured out!
“But He’s going to be merciful to the Believing Remnant and to the land of Israel and He’s going to establish His kingdom. He’s going to wipe out the planet. The Song of the Lamb in Rev. 15 is about that. The Song of Moses is the judgment and, in the Song of the Lamb, it’s as the lamb in Rev. 5 that He prevails and goes and takes the book.
“He goes before the Father and they look for a man who can take the book. The earth has been given to man. Here’s the title deed for the earth but they need a man who can go take the book, and there was not one found, and then they had found one who had prevailed to take the book and He was the lamb as He were slain. Because of the Crosswork, the Lord Jesus Christ has won the right to possess the earth and then He comes back as a lion to put into effect what He won and owns as the lamb.
“You’re fixin’ to see Him come back in Rev. 15 and following as the lion and destroy His enemies and set up His kingdom, and when He starts putting His power into effect, and functioning as their Avenger, up there in heaven they sing the Song of Moses and the Song of the Lamb. Psalms 96-100 are exactly the issues that are identified in Rev. 15 as the issues in the Song of the Lamb.
“And so there’s a correlation there and, just as that new Song of the Lamb is sung in heaven, when these Believers go into their kingdom this is what they’re singing.
“Now you know how wonderful a song is to get you through a bad spot. You know, if you got a song in your heart, it just tends to help you get through the day. That’s why music is such a solace and such a wonderful thing.
“It also makes it easy for you to remember things, and that Believing Remnant looking for their Deliverer sings about their king and in that fourth book of the Psalms, the focus of the heart of the Believer is going to be on their king and the beauty of His holiness in His kingdom so they’d stay faithful to Him.
*****
“In the last section of the Psalms, Psalms 120-134, the issue is the Redeemer has come, He’s delivered His people, destroyed His enemies and set up His kingdom and now the blessings of His kingdom are going to be spread to all the earth.
“There are 15 of what are called ‘song of degrees’. One of them, 127, is a song of degrees for Solomon. Four of them are identified as being written by David. So five of them have their author attached, which leaves 10 of them as unidentified or anonymous. There’s a reason for that because the songs of degree are very important in relationship to the history of Israel.
“Anytime a Bible student, or especially a believing Jew, would read about degrees, there’s something he would think about in his Bible. And what he would think about is what happened to Hezekiah in Isaiah 38 and, of course, in the record in Kings.
“Hezekiah was a good king in Israel and he got sick. Isaiah is told in verse 5 to go and say to Hezekiah, ‘Go, and say to Hezekiah, Thus saith the LORD, the God of David thy father, I have heard thy prayer, I have seen thy tears: behold, I will add unto thy days fifteen years.’
“There’s two things you got to remember about this. Hezekiah didn’t have any kids at this time. He’s the royal lineage of David. Had Hezekiah died childless the seed line would have ended. Because God extended his life fifteen years, it was during that fifteen-year extension that he had a son. Manasseh was his name and he turned out to be a dud as far as a son is concerned, or a king in Israel is concerned, but at least Hezekiah had the kid and the line went on and you go to Matthew 1 and you’ll see him in the royal lineage of the Lord Jesus Christ.
“So God is extending mercy and carrying on His purpose in Israel by extending Hezekiah’s life. He also delivers them from the Assyrian and defends the city. This is a type of the Antichrist, a type of the defense that Jesus Christ will make against Israel’s enemy in the last day.
“Now, in connection with that defense against the Assyrian, and that extension of Hezekiah’s life in order to preserve the seed line, there’s a sign given in the coming of the Messiah. Verse 7-8 says, And this shall be a sign unto thee from the LORD, that the LORD will do this thing that he hath spoken;
[8] Behold, I will bring again the shadow of the degrees, which is gone down in the sun dial of Ahaz, ten degrees backward. So the sun returned ten degrees, by which degrees it was gone down.
“So the son returned 10 degrees by which degrees it was gone down. Anybody in the Bible that was studying the Bible and read about degrees would have immediately remembered that miracle when God caused the sun dial to go back 10 degrees.
“Verse 9 says, ‘The writing of Hezekiah king of Judah, when he had been sick, and was recovered of his sickness.’ You notice Hezekiah was a writer. In Proverbs 25:1 you have a record of the Proverbs of Solomon that the men of King Hezekiah caused to be copied out.
“Hezekiah, during this time period, became a chronicler and an editor of many of the books in your Old Testament. He also became an author of portions of the Old Testament.
“Verse 20 says, ‘The LORD was ready to save me: therefore we will sing my songs to the stringed instruments all the days of our life in the house of the LORD.’ Notice that Hezekiah wrote some songs. So when you go to the Book of Psalms and you begin to see songs of degrees, you go, ‘Oh, I can figure out what that affects!’
“A degree is an incremental progression where you calculate progression; it’s a stage of advance where you go beyond something a little bit and a little bit. And what the songs of degree do, ten of them written by Hezekiah, four by David and one by Solomon.
“David and Solomon represent the two aspects of Christ: the bloody man, the man of war, and the man of peace. Here He is the avenger and the Deliverer and then He’s the King and the Blesser in David and Solomon and then Hezekiah adds the other 10.
“These songs of degrees have to do with the aspect of the blessing of the kingdom that is there in Israel, not simply staying in Israel, but spreading itself out over the whole earth. Isaiah 9:7 talks about, ‘Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end.’ ”
In chapter 32, the first 42 verses give the reviews of the indictment against Israel and why they’re going to go through all these courses of judgment.
Verse 43 says, “Rejoice, O ye nations, with his people: for he will avenge the blood of his servants, and will render vengeance to his adversaries, and will be merciful unto his land, and to his people.”
Jordan explains, “The Song of Moses brings Israel all the way through its history to the very point where God’s going to pour out His wrath and avenge His enemies. That’s where you are in Revelation 15. The wrath is fixin’ to be poured out and the last thing that Song of Moses calls for is what’s fixin’ to happen in Revelation 15-19. The vials of the wrath of God are going to be poured out!
“But He’s going to be merciful to the Believing Remnant and to the land of Israel and He’s going to establish His kingdom. He’s going to wipe out the planet. The Song of the Lamb in Rev. 15 is about that. The Song of Moses is the judgment and, in the Song of the Lamb, it’s as the lamb in Rev. 5 that He prevails and goes and takes the book.
“He goes before the Father and they look for a man who can take the book. The earth has been given to man. Here’s the title deed for the earth but they need a man who can go take the book, and there was not one found, and then they had found one who had prevailed to take the book and He was the lamb as He were slain. Because of the Crosswork, the Lord Jesus Christ has won the right to possess the earth and then He comes back as a lion to put into effect what He won and owns as the lamb.
“You’re fixin’ to see Him come back in Rev. 15 and following as the lion and destroy His enemies and set up His kingdom, and when He starts putting His power into effect, and functioning as their Avenger, up there in heaven they sing the Song of Moses and the Song of the Lamb. Psalms 96-100 are exactly the issues that are identified in Rev. 15 as the issues in the Song of the Lamb.
“And so there’s a correlation there and, just as that new Song of the Lamb is sung in heaven, when these Believers go into their kingdom this is what they’re singing.
“Now you know how wonderful a song is to get you through a bad spot. You know, if you got a song in your heart, it just tends to help you get through the day. That’s why music is such a solace and such a wonderful thing.
“It also makes it easy for you to remember things, and that Believing Remnant looking for their Deliverer sings about their king and in that fourth book of the Psalms, the focus of the heart of the Believer is going to be on their king and the beauty of His holiness in His kingdom so they’d stay faithful to Him.
*****
“In the last section of the Psalms, Psalms 120-134, the issue is the Redeemer has come, He’s delivered His people, destroyed His enemies and set up His kingdom and now the blessings of His kingdom are going to be spread to all the earth.
“There are 15 of what are called ‘song of degrees’. One of them, 127, is a song of degrees for Solomon. Four of them are identified as being written by David. So five of them have their author attached, which leaves 10 of them as unidentified or anonymous. There’s a reason for that because the songs of degree are very important in relationship to the history of Israel.
“Anytime a Bible student, or especially a believing Jew, would read about degrees, there’s something he would think about in his Bible. And what he would think about is what happened to Hezekiah in Isaiah 38 and, of course, in the record in Kings.
“Hezekiah was a good king in Israel and he got sick. Isaiah is told in verse 5 to go and say to Hezekiah, ‘Go, and say to Hezekiah, Thus saith the LORD, the God of David thy father, I have heard thy prayer, I have seen thy tears: behold, I will add unto thy days fifteen years.’
“There’s two things you got to remember about this. Hezekiah didn’t have any kids at this time. He’s the royal lineage of David. Had Hezekiah died childless the seed line would have ended. Because God extended his life fifteen years, it was during that fifteen-year extension that he had a son. Manasseh was his name and he turned out to be a dud as far as a son is concerned, or a king in Israel is concerned, but at least Hezekiah had the kid and the line went on and you go to Matthew 1 and you’ll see him in the royal lineage of the Lord Jesus Christ.
“So God is extending mercy and carrying on His purpose in Israel by extending Hezekiah’s life. He also delivers them from the Assyrian and defends the city. This is a type of the Antichrist, a type of the defense that Jesus Christ will make against Israel’s enemy in the last day.
“Now, in connection with that defense against the Assyrian, and that extension of Hezekiah’s life in order to preserve the seed line, there’s a sign given in the coming of the Messiah. Verse 7-8 says, And this shall be a sign unto thee from the LORD, that the LORD will do this thing that he hath spoken;
[8] Behold, I will bring again the shadow of the degrees, which is gone down in the sun dial of Ahaz, ten degrees backward. So the sun returned ten degrees, by which degrees it was gone down.
“So the son returned 10 degrees by which degrees it was gone down. Anybody in the Bible that was studying the Bible and read about degrees would have immediately remembered that miracle when God caused the sun dial to go back 10 degrees.
“Verse 9 says, ‘The writing of Hezekiah king of Judah, when he had been sick, and was recovered of his sickness.’ You notice Hezekiah was a writer. In Proverbs 25:1 you have a record of the Proverbs of Solomon that the men of King Hezekiah caused to be copied out.
“Hezekiah, during this time period, became a chronicler and an editor of many of the books in your Old Testament. He also became an author of portions of the Old Testament.
“Verse 20 says, ‘The LORD was ready to save me: therefore we will sing my songs to the stringed instruments all the days of our life in the house of the LORD.’ Notice that Hezekiah wrote some songs. So when you go to the Book of Psalms and you begin to see songs of degrees, you go, ‘Oh, I can figure out what that affects!’
“A degree is an incremental progression where you calculate progression; it’s a stage of advance where you go beyond something a little bit and a little bit. And what the songs of degree do, ten of them written by Hezekiah, four by David and one by Solomon.
“David and Solomon represent the two aspects of Christ: the bloody man, the man of war, and the man of peace. Here He is the avenger and the Deliverer and then He’s the King and the Blesser in David and Solomon and then Hezekiah adds the other 10.
“These songs of degrees have to do with the aspect of the blessing of the kingdom that is there in Israel, not simply staying in Israel, but spreading itself out over the whole earth. Isaiah 9:7 talks about, ‘Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end.’ ”
Tuesday, March 6, 2012
All in for pillar and ground
You can’t learn about what happened at Ephesus by looking at the Book of the Ephesians. Because things happened at Ephesus before Paul wrote the book.
I Timothy 1:3, for example, says, “As I besought thee to abide still at Ephesus, when I went into Macedonia, that thou mightest charge some that they teach no other doctrine.”
Jordan says, “Notice Timothy is in Ephesus ministering when he writes I Timothy. So I Timothy is really written to Timothy about how to organize and make a local church function, but what local church is he specifically talking about? The church at Ephesus.
“Now look at what that church is in I Timothy 3. It’s really ‘the pillar and the ground of the truth.’ What is the church here in Chicago? We’re to be ‘the pillar and the ground of the truth.’ The purpose of this church is to hold up the truth and to say, ‘It’s still here! It’s available! Here it is! Here’s the message of life and peace and forgiveness and joy and fulfillment and heaven and here’s the life of stability in Christ and here’s how that life functions and lives in you.’
“You notice how he says it? ‘The church of the living God.’ At Ephesus there was another church that was the opposite. Ephesus has been described as one of the three great cities of the Roman world. Rome was the great political, military center of the ancient world in Paul’s day.
“Alexandria, Egypt, over in North Africa, was the cultural, educational center of the world. The great library of Alexandria—it was one of the seven wonders of the world. On the road across Asia Minor into Europe set Ephesus. It was a capital of Ionia. It was on the western coast. And it was sort of like Chicago.
“It was a commercial crossroads. Not of the Midwest, but of that era, and it was an extremely important commercial center. It wasn’t but just a little ways from Corinth, which was south down in Greece.
“Ephesus was also a religious center. In fact, you could say it was THE religious center of that era. For in Ephesus there was this Great Temple of Diana. It’s listed as one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. It was sort of the Taj Mahal of the day.
“It was a mega-church before there were mega-churches and it was a religious icon of the ancient world and it was into that city that Paul first ventured on his second apostolic ministry in Acts 18. He took Priscilla and Aquila with him. He left them and that’s when Apollos came along and they bring him into the way of grace more up to date.
“Then Paul returned to Ephesus after he’d been in the churches of Galatia ministering, and in Acts 19:8 it says, ‘And he went into the synagogue and spake boldly for the space of three months, disputing and persuading the things concerning the kingdom of God.’
“That’s a fascinating passage. For three months, he goes into the synagogue and he disputes. Now that’s Paul’s pattern in the Book of Acts. Notice here there’s a lot of things Paul’s doing that aren’t recorded in the Book of Acts.
“The purpose of the Book of Acts it to tell you about the fall of Israel and God’s rightness in turning to the Gentiles through Paul’s ministry. He goes away from them, leaves them, and you see the public condemnation, as it were, of Israel’s rejection of Christ.
“Over that two-year period where Paul separates himself and is preaching, ‘All they that are in Asia heard the word.’ Now if all those in Asia heard, did they all come to Ephesus? They didn’t have a TV, telephone, internet, radio. How in the world did he get it all over Asia Minor?! That’s Turkey! How did you get it over there from Ephesus?!
“He taught them, he’s in the school of Tyrannus, having public meetings. Acts 20:34 says, ‘Yea, ye yourselves know, that these hands have ministered unto my necessities, and to them that were with me.’
“You know what Paul’s saying? He says, ‘When I was there I worked and made
my own living!’ He’s a tent-maker. Run back up to verse 20. So he had public meetings in the school of Tyrannus (Acts 19). But also he ran around and had house meetings. There’s this daily house ministry where he’s out teaching and preaching God’s word.
“Verse 19 says, ‘And how I kept back nothing that was profitable unto you, but have shewed you, and have taught you publickly, and from house to house.’ There was a continuous opposition, by the way. If you want to read a strange verse go to I Cor. 15:31-32: ‘I protest by your rejoicing which I have in Christ Jesus our Lord, I die daily. If after the manner of men I have fought with beasts at Ephesus, what advantageth it me, if the dead rise not? let us eat and drink; for to morrow we die.’
“A beast could be a beast, the Romans did that. You know, put them in the den with the lions. But also beast in the Bible can refer to men; people who are driven by their animal passions. There were people who didn’t like what Paul was preaching and went after them and he had to contend with them and they were like ravenous beasts trying to consume him and destroy him.
“That’s why when you go back to chapter 19, you read a verse like 23 (‘And the same time there arose no small stir about that way) and you say, ‘Well, I can kind of understand that.’ He got the whole community fired up!
“In fact, if you start in verse 11, it says, 11] And God wrought special miracles by the hands of Paul: [12] So that from his body were brought unto the sick handkerchiefs or aprons, and the diseases departed from them, and the evil spirits went out of them.
“Man, you talk about a guy who’s got some power! I mean he just pulls a hanky out and goes ‘Whirr,’ and the diseases go! You got whackos on TV trying to do that right now, you know. You know what this was? This worked!
“It gets more pointed in Acts 19:13: ‘Then certain of the vagabond Jews, exorcists, took upon them to call over them which had evil spirits the name of the Lord Jesus, saying, We adjure you by Jesus whom Paul preacheth.’
“What’s the condition of Israel? Paul left them in the synagogue, went out to the Gentiles. What’s the condition of the people he’s abandoned? Here’s a picture of what Israel had become because of their rejection of Christ.
“ ‘Jesus we know, Paul we know, but who you boy?!’ They’re vagabond Jews. That’s who Israel becomes. Apostate Israel was just wandering homelessly with no land of their own. Vagabonds. They HAD a Promised Land but they don’t have it now.
“‘Exorcists, dabbling with evil spirits, calling on the name of the Lord Jesus.’ I mean, they’re FALSE prophets! They got nothing to do with the Lord Jesus Christ! But they’re a bunch of liars willing to do ANYTHING to make a profit.
“And he says there’s false prophets and false priesthoods. And what happens? “[15] And the evil spirit answered and said, Jesus I know, and Paul I know; but who are ye?
[16] And the man in whom the evil spirit was leaped on them, and overcame them, and prevailed against them, so that they fled out of that house naked and wounded.’
“I’d like to have seen that! But that’s the spiritual condition that Israel was in. And this is known fear magnified.
“You know what happened? Verse 10 says, ‘And this continued by the space of two years; so that all they which dwelt in Asia heard the word of the Lord Jesus, both Jews and Greeks.
[11] And God wrought special miracles by the hands of Paul:’
“You know what happens when the Jews are sent away and the judgment falls on them? There’s a blessing that goes to the Gentiles. What’s happening in Acts now? That’s what Luke’s recording? Was it just in doing it? Sure, they’re a bunch of vagabond extortionists claiming to be somebody they aren’t and God’s judgment fell on them.
“The result was ‘many that believed came, and confessed, and shewed their deeds.
[19] Many of them also which used curious arts brought their books together, and burned them before all men: and they counted the price of them, and found it fifty thousand pieces of silver.
[20] So mightily grew the word of God and prevailed.’
“Somebody said in modern terms that’s about 5-6 million dollars. That dude that burned them rock records down there in Comiskey Park those years ago, he wasn’t doing anything new! He claimed to be setting the pace. He’s just copying this. They had a book-burning. The French burned the Bibles. These guys were burning the devil’s books. You see the revival that’s coming? You see what’s happening? The whole pagan world is SHAKEN. Verse 20 says, ‘So mightily grew the word of God and prevailed.’
“That first word ‘so’ in the verse is the important one to me. Because of the victories that were won for the preaching of the gospel of the grace of God, the Word of God grew and prevailed. Now when that happened verse 23 says, ‘And the same time there arose no small stir about that way.
[24] For a certain man named Demetrius, a silversmith, which made silver shrines for Diana, brought no small gain unto the craftsmen;’
“Now that was the first mega-church with worldwide impact. A false god, a dead god. By the way, you notice the silversmith is making shrines or aids to worship. Little idols. The craftsmanship that went into that, the beauty, the love the effort, the intelligence, the art. These were artisans.
“The temple Diana. If you look at verse 34-35. Jupiter’s in the heavens. Diana is just another name for the Queen of Heaven. if you go back to Jeremiah 44, you’ll find that the nation Israel was worshipping the Queen of Heaven when Israel was caught off into apostasy.
“You go back to Judges 2 and you see Baal and Astarte and he’s the male god and she’s the female deity. All through there’s been that worship of the Queen of Heaven. Rome called her Venus, the Greeks called her Diana, Minerva, Juno. The Phoenicians called her Ashtoreth, the Syrians called her Astarte, the Egyptians called her Isis, Christians call her Mary.
“Acts 19:37 says, ‘For ye have brought hither these men, which are neither robbers of churches, nor yet blasphemers of your goddess.’ Notice that a bunch of heathens had their churches too. Pagans have churches just like we have churches. The pagans have temples just like Israel had temples. It’s a counterfeit of the real thing.”
I Timothy 1:3, for example, says, “As I besought thee to abide still at Ephesus, when I went into Macedonia, that thou mightest charge some that they teach no other doctrine.”
Jordan says, “Notice Timothy is in Ephesus ministering when he writes I Timothy. So I Timothy is really written to Timothy about how to organize and make a local church function, but what local church is he specifically talking about? The church at Ephesus.
“Now look at what that church is in I Timothy 3. It’s really ‘the pillar and the ground of the truth.’ What is the church here in Chicago? We’re to be ‘the pillar and the ground of the truth.’ The purpose of this church is to hold up the truth and to say, ‘It’s still here! It’s available! Here it is! Here’s the message of life and peace and forgiveness and joy and fulfillment and heaven and here’s the life of stability in Christ and here’s how that life functions and lives in you.’
“You notice how he says it? ‘The church of the living God.’ At Ephesus there was another church that was the opposite. Ephesus has been described as one of the three great cities of the Roman world. Rome was the great political, military center of the ancient world in Paul’s day.
“Alexandria, Egypt, over in North Africa, was the cultural, educational center of the world. The great library of Alexandria—it was one of the seven wonders of the world. On the road across Asia Minor into Europe set Ephesus. It was a capital of Ionia. It was on the western coast. And it was sort of like Chicago.
“It was a commercial crossroads. Not of the Midwest, but of that era, and it was an extremely important commercial center. It wasn’t but just a little ways from Corinth, which was south down in Greece.
“Ephesus was also a religious center. In fact, you could say it was THE religious center of that era. For in Ephesus there was this Great Temple of Diana. It’s listed as one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. It was sort of the Taj Mahal of the day.
“It was a mega-church before there were mega-churches and it was a religious icon of the ancient world and it was into that city that Paul first ventured on his second apostolic ministry in Acts 18. He took Priscilla and Aquila with him. He left them and that’s when Apollos came along and they bring him into the way of grace more up to date.
“Then Paul returned to Ephesus after he’d been in the churches of Galatia ministering, and in Acts 19:8 it says, ‘And he went into the synagogue and spake boldly for the space of three months, disputing and persuading the things concerning the kingdom of God.’
“That’s a fascinating passage. For three months, he goes into the synagogue and he disputes. Now that’s Paul’s pattern in the Book of Acts. Notice here there’s a lot of things Paul’s doing that aren’t recorded in the Book of Acts.
“The purpose of the Book of Acts it to tell you about the fall of Israel and God’s rightness in turning to the Gentiles through Paul’s ministry. He goes away from them, leaves them, and you see the public condemnation, as it were, of Israel’s rejection of Christ.
“Over that two-year period where Paul separates himself and is preaching, ‘All they that are in Asia heard the word.’ Now if all those in Asia heard, did they all come to Ephesus? They didn’t have a TV, telephone, internet, radio. How in the world did he get it all over Asia Minor?! That’s Turkey! How did you get it over there from Ephesus?!
“He taught them, he’s in the school of Tyrannus, having public meetings. Acts 20:34 says, ‘Yea, ye yourselves know, that these hands have ministered unto my necessities, and to them that were with me.’
“You know what Paul’s saying? He says, ‘When I was there I worked and made
my own living!’ He’s a tent-maker. Run back up to verse 20. So he had public meetings in the school of Tyrannus (Acts 19). But also he ran around and had house meetings. There’s this daily house ministry where he’s out teaching and preaching God’s word.
“Verse 19 says, ‘And how I kept back nothing that was profitable unto you, but have shewed you, and have taught you publickly, and from house to house.’ There was a continuous opposition, by the way. If you want to read a strange verse go to I Cor. 15:31-32: ‘I protest by your rejoicing which I have in Christ Jesus our Lord, I die daily. If after the manner of men I have fought with beasts at Ephesus, what advantageth it me, if the dead rise not? let us eat and drink; for to morrow we die.’
“A beast could be a beast, the Romans did that. You know, put them in the den with the lions. But also beast in the Bible can refer to men; people who are driven by their animal passions. There were people who didn’t like what Paul was preaching and went after them and he had to contend with them and they were like ravenous beasts trying to consume him and destroy him.
“That’s why when you go back to chapter 19, you read a verse like 23 (‘And the same time there arose no small stir about that way) and you say, ‘Well, I can kind of understand that.’ He got the whole community fired up!
“In fact, if you start in verse 11, it says, 11] And God wrought special miracles by the hands of Paul: [12] So that from his body were brought unto the sick handkerchiefs or aprons, and the diseases departed from them, and the evil spirits went out of them.
“Man, you talk about a guy who’s got some power! I mean he just pulls a hanky out and goes ‘Whirr,’ and the diseases go! You got whackos on TV trying to do that right now, you know. You know what this was? This worked!
“It gets more pointed in Acts 19:13: ‘Then certain of the vagabond Jews, exorcists, took upon them to call over them which had evil spirits the name of the Lord Jesus, saying, We adjure you by Jesus whom Paul preacheth.’
“What’s the condition of Israel? Paul left them in the synagogue, went out to the Gentiles. What’s the condition of the people he’s abandoned? Here’s a picture of what Israel had become because of their rejection of Christ.
“ ‘Jesus we know, Paul we know, but who you boy?!’ They’re vagabond Jews. That’s who Israel becomes. Apostate Israel was just wandering homelessly with no land of their own. Vagabonds. They HAD a Promised Land but they don’t have it now.
“‘Exorcists, dabbling with evil spirits, calling on the name of the Lord Jesus.’ I mean, they’re FALSE prophets! They got nothing to do with the Lord Jesus Christ! But they’re a bunch of liars willing to do ANYTHING to make a profit.
“And he says there’s false prophets and false priesthoods. And what happens? “[15] And the evil spirit answered and said, Jesus I know, and Paul I know; but who are ye?
[16] And the man in whom the evil spirit was leaped on them, and overcame them, and prevailed against them, so that they fled out of that house naked and wounded.’
“I’d like to have seen that! But that’s the spiritual condition that Israel was in. And this is known fear magnified.
“You know what happened? Verse 10 says, ‘And this continued by the space of two years; so that all they which dwelt in Asia heard the word of the Lord Jesus, both Jews and Greeks.
[11] And God wrought special miracles by the hands of Paul:’
“You know what happens when the Jews are sent away and the judgment falls on them? There’s a blessing that goes to the Gentiles. What’s happening in Acts now? That’s what Luke’s recording? Was it just in doing it? Sure, they’re a bunch of vagabond extortionists claiming to be somebody they aren’t and God’s judgment fell on them.
“The result was ‘many that believed came, and confessed, and shewed their deeds.
[19] Many of them also which used curious arts brought their books together, and burned them before all men: and they counted the price of them, and found it fifty thousand pieces of silver.
[20] So mightily grew the word of God and prevailed.’
“Somebody said in modern terms that’s about 5-6 million dollars. That dude that burned them rock records down there in Comiskey Park those years ago, he wasn’t doing anything new! He claimed to be setting the pace. He’s just copying this. They had a book-burning. The French burned the Bibles. These guys were burning the devil’s books. You see the revival that’s coming? You see what’s happening? The whole pagan world is SHAKEN. Verse 20 says, ‘So mightily grew the word of God and prevailed.’
“That first word ‘so’ in the verse is the important one to me. Because of the victories that were won for the preaching of the gospel of the grace of God, the Word of God grew and prevailed. Now when that happened verse 23 says, ‘And the same time there arose no small stir about that way.
[24] For a certain man named Demetrius, a silversmith, which made silver shrines for Diana, brought no small gain unto the craftsmen;’
“Now that was the first mega-church with worldwide impact. A false god, a dead god. By the way, you notice the silversmith is making shrines or aids to worship. Little idols. The craftsmanship that went into that, the beauty, the love the effort, the intelligence, the art. These were artisans.
“The temple Diana. If you look at verse 34-35. Jupiter’s in the heavens. Diana is just another name for the Queen of Heaven. if you go back to Jeremiah 44, you’ll find that the nation Israel was worshipping the Queen of Heaven when Israel was caught off into apostasy.
“You go back to Judges 2 and you see Baal and Astarte and he’s the male god and she’s the female deity. All through there’s been that worship of the Queen of Heaven. Rome called her Venus, the Greeks called her Diana, Minerva, Juno. The Phoenicians called her Ashtoreth, the Syrians called her Astarte, the Egyptians called her Isis, Christians call her Mary.
“Acts 19:37 says, ‘For ye have brought hither these men, which are neither robbers of churches, nor yet blasphemers of your goddess.’ Notice that a bunch of heathens had their churches too. Pagans have churches just like we have churches. The pagans have temples just like Israel had temples. It’s a counterfeit of the real thing.”
Saturday, March 3, 2012
Cosmic impact
Leviticus 12 starts out, “And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying,
[2] 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.
[3] And in the eighth day the flesh of his foreskin shall be circumcised."
Jordan says, “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.”
“Now that’s important to follow that because sometime people think about the millennial kingdom and they say, ‘Well, why is there a Millennium if the kingdom lasts forever? Why does it just last a thousand years?’ Well it doesn’t. Every dispensation has a transition INTO it.
“If you go back to the dispensation of promise, it began back with Adam and there was a transition into it. They were in the Garden first and they sinned. There was Cain and Abel. The seed of the woman.
“You go from Adam to Moses and Moses to Christ. When you come to Moses, you move into the dispensation of the law. There’s a transition into the law system.
“When the dispensation of grace begins, there’s also a transition, or diminishing of Israel as the Body of Christ is established. There’s a transition in the Book of Acts from Israel’s program to our program.
“There will be a transition into ‘the dispensation of the fulness of time,’ and the millennial kingdom is the last of seven and the beginning of the eternal kingdom. But that kingdom that last forever begins before the seven days are over; it’s the last of the seven days because in that kingdom, when the Psalmist says, ‘Rule thou in the midst of thy enemies,’ He’s going to be ruling with a rod of iron and still have enemies in the camp.
“Now, after the millennium and that dispensation of the fulness of times begins out here, in that eighth day all of His enemies are going to be destroyed. Death, Satan, and all the rest of them will be cast down into the lake of fire. They’ll be gone.
“Death, sin, destruction, all rebellion and everybody associated with it, are out of the way, and only the saved people--only the Body of Christ, Israel and the nations that are not a part of Satan’s program—go out there.
“So this thousand years is a transition, but it’s important to see it’s the last of the seven, then the cutting off of all that offended, and only that which doesn’t offend goes out here and all sin is over with there. So, in the eighth day, there’s the circumcision. The removal of all of human effort; human contamination. Ismael is completely gone and only God’s program goes. So that’s the pattern or prototype.
“That having been said, Leviticus 12:4 says, ‘And she shall then continue in the blood of her purifying three and thirty days; she shall touch no hallowed thing, nor come into the sanctuary, until the days of her purifying be fulfilled.’
“Notice that out here, there’s not just the seven days, now there’s going to be a period of 33 days to finish restoring what was lost back over here at the beginning.
“Things were put out of kilter with the fall of Satan. Then God restores Creation in those six days and then demonstrates on that seventh day, ‘This is what I had everything created for so I could reign; I could rest in my creation.’
“All of the divisions and provisions for the warfare God established in Genesis 1 in that six-day creation. One of the reasons I know something happened back there in Genesis is because the description there is alerting me that it’s going to last until here and this is the end of that battle.
“After that Millennium, that eighth day, that new beginning, here you are. Now there’s a new heaven and a new earth; it’s all been renovated. Chapter 20:11. The elements melt and are dissolved with a fervent heat, Peter said. And then He reconstructs it. ‘The first heaven and the first earth were passed away and there was no more sea.’
“He’s going to go back to the original design for His creation. Which was what? Isaiah 40: ‘He stretched out the heavens as a tent to dwell in.’ So what’s going to happen? Revelation 21 says, [1] And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea.
[2] And I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.
[3] And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God.
[4] And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.
“And then He begins to describe how that new creation is going to be populated and function. You come to Revelation 22.
“What happens is we’re functioning in the heavens, Israel’s on the earth, the Gentile nations are on the earth with Israel. The passage reads, ‘And he shewed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb. [2] In the midst of the street of it, and on either side of the river, was there the tree of life, which bare twelve manner of fruits, and yielded her fruit every month: and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.'
*****
“When you read that, the first thing I think of is, ‘Why do the nations need to be healed? What needs to be healed if all of sorrow, sin, sickness and disease is done away with? What healing needs to be provided for the nations?’
“Well, first of all, what nations are we talking about? You’re talking about the Gentiles. So where did they come from? You’ve got Gentiles that go out of tribulation into the kingdom. All Israel that goes into the kingdom are converted.
“You’ve got Gentiles that go in, but you’ve got Gentiles that come out of the tribulation into the kingdom who are converted but they’re still in natural bodies. They’re not resurrected. They can procreate. They repopulate the earth.
“When you get to the Great White Throne Judgment, only the Believers get past that into the new heavens and the new earth but they still have the capacity to procreate and populate the earth.
“When He says, ‘For the healing of the nations,’ the healing there is not ‘heal them from sin,’ because sin and its degenerative effects have been taken care of. The healing there is sort of, you remember, the guy in Acts 3. Peter and John heal the lame man and he jumped up leaping and goes into the temple. That’s exactly what will happen to Israel; they’ll be redeemed, restored and they’ll go into the kingdom.
“In the next chapter, Peter, referring to that man, says, ‘And his name through faith in his name hath made this man strong, whom ye see and know: yea, the faith which is by him hath given him this perfect soundness in the presence of you all.’
“Healing isn’t necessarily trying to get rid of sinful things. It’s bringing a thing to its full operating capacity. To its ‘soundness.’
“Well, the tree of life that’s going to heal these nations--you remember Adam and Eve in Genesis 3? God says, ‘We’ve got to put a guard around the tree of life because they’ve sinned, and if they eat the tree of life, they’ll live forever.
“What if they had eaten the tree of life before the fall? Wouldn’t it do the same thing after the fall? What the tree of life is going to do is restore and give to these people who are in the condition that Adam and Eve were in. They’ve been restored back to that condition here but they still have the ability to go out and replenish the earth. And so He’s going to extend to them the issue of eternal life.
“Now you have to think of that in the context of the Garden of Eden. I know people say there was no death until Adam sinned. And there was no death because of sin but you have to think about there were life cycles.
“If Adam and Eve ate fruit (the herbs and the fruit of the trees) and they tended to the gardens, when you pull a piece of fruit off a tree, what happens to it? It dies, doesn’t it? If you consume it, it really died in the sense that it’s not connected to a life source anymore.
“So the idea of death in that context of a life cycle was not foreign to Adam. What sin did is it inflicted that kind of a thing. By the way, sin was in the world because of Satan. Sin did not enter into the world of man into our genetic line until Adam sinned. But Satan sinned before Adam did.
“What I’m saying is, Adam is tending the Garden. You think about what was he doing? If the roses have grown too big, what do you do? If they don’t ever grow too big, you don’t need to tend to them. It’s a living, producing creation and Adam was putting it into its proper orderly function. Well, that’s what this healing of the nations is about. It’s bringing these nations to the place where they function fully according to God’s plan.
“Sooner or later, if Isaiah 9:7 is true . . . It says, ‘Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom, to order it, and to establish it with judgment and with justice from henceforth even for ever. The zeal of the LORD of hosts will perform this.’
“Notice it doesn’t say ‘of His government there will be no end.’ It says ‘of the increase and peace of his government.’ Well, if his government is going to continuously grow, the people involved are going to continuously populate and pretty soon you’re going to get a population density on Planet Earth that is unsustainable.
“What was God’s original purpose for His creation? The universe out here. It was to populate it with a creation that brings glory and honor to Him. People say, ‘Well, are there other planets like earth in the universe. Evidently there are.’
“I don’t like to sound like a Mormon when you say this, the idea of you and I as members of the Body of Christ works with Him in His creation and delights in His creation the way He does, which means to me that He’s going to take people back out throughout that universe.
“Another taking a couple out to a new planet in the universe. Find a planet like earth, deposit them there, and have them carry on God’s commission to man: replenish the earth.
“Jesus Christ walked with Adam in the cool of the day; instructed him. You and I, as members of the Body of Christ, have Christ in us and living out through us. He will be admired in us. We will literally be able to represent Him to them.
“And the 33 out there, if this is 7,000 years, that would be 33,000 years to make the 40 in Leviticus 12 for the complete purification; to bring the thing back to the place it was originally at before all that stuff started.
“It’s to complete the cycle and bring that ‘ages of the ages,’ the dispensation of the fulness of time, and what God had created time for. That is, fill up a universe with a creation that glorifies and admires His wisdom and the riches of His grace, which is the plan of His wisdom to defeat the Adversary and demonstrate His character.
“This thing is something marvelous and stupendous. It’s of cosmic impact that God has planned for His Son and that you and I participate in it. And you need to get over worrying about tomorrow and the next day and think about those days and that future out there. Eternity is that it just keeps on going, and it keeps on going, and it keeps on going, and it never stops.”
[2] 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.
[3] And in the eighth day the flesh of his foreskin shall be circumcised."
Jordan says, “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.”
“Now that’s important to follow that because sometime people think about the millennial kingdom and they say, ‘Well, why is there a Millennium if the kingdom lasts forever? Why does it just last a thousand years?’ Well it doesn’t. Every dispensation has a transition INTO it.
“If you go back to the dispensation of promise, it began back with Adam and there was a transition into it. They were in the Garden first and they sinned. There was Cain and Abel. The seed of the woman.
“You go from Adam to Moses and Moses to Christ. When you come to Moses, you move into the dispensation of the law. There’s a transition into the law system.
“When the dispensation of grace begins, there’s also a transition, or diminishing of Israel as the Body of Christ is established. There’s a transition in the Book of Acts from Israel’s program to our program.
“There will be a transition into ‘the dispensation of the fulness of time,’ and the millennial kingdom is the last of seven and the beginning of the eternal kingdom. But that kingdom that last forever begins before the seven days are over; it’s the last of the seven days because in that kingdom, when the Psalmist says, ‘Rule thou in the midst of thy enemies,’ He’s going to be ruling with a rod of iron and still have enemies in the camp.
“Now, after the millennium and that dispensation of the fulness of times begins out here, in that eighth day all of His enemies are going to be destroyed. Death, Satan, and all the rest of them will be cast down into the lake of fire. They’ll be gone.
“Death, sin, destruction, all rebellion and everybody associated with it, are out of the way, and only the saved people--only the Body of Christ, Israel and the nations that are not a part of Satan’s program—go out there.
“So this thousand years is a transition, but it’s important to see it’s the last of the seven, then the cutting off of all that offended, and only that which doesn’t offend goes out here and all sin is over with there. So, in the eighth day, there’s the circumcision. The removal of all of human effort; human contamination. Ismael is completely gone and only God’s program goes. So that’s the pattern or prototype.
“That having been said, Leviticus 12:4 says, ‘And she shall then continue in the blood of her purifying three and thirty days; she shall touch no hallowed thing, nor come into the sanctuary, until the days of her purifying be fulfilled.’
“Notice that out here, there’s not just the seven days, now there’s going to be a period of 33 days to finish restoring what was lost back over here at the beginning.
“Things were put out of kilter with the fall of Satan. Then God restores Creation in those six days and then demonstrates on that seventh day, ‘This is what I had everything created for so I could reign; I could rest in my creation.’
“All of the divisions and provisions for the warfare God established in Genesis 1 in that six-day creation. One of the reasons I know something happened back there in Genesis is because the description there is alerting me that it’s going to last until here and this is the end of that battle.
“After that Millennium, that eighth day, that new beginning, here you are. Now there’s a new heaven and a new earth; it’s all been renovated. Chapter 20:11. The elements melt and are dissolved with a fervent heat, Peter said. And then He reconstructs it. ‘The first heaven and the first earth were passed away and there was no more sea.’
“He’s going to go back to the original design for His creation. Which was what? Isaiah 40: ‘He stretched out the heavens as a tent to dwell in.’ So what’s going to happen? Revelation 21 says, [1] And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea.
[2] And I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.
[3] And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God.
[4] And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.
“And then He begins to describe how that new creation is going to be populated and function. You come to Revelation 22.
“What happens is we’re functioning in the heavens, Israel’s on the earth, the Gentile nations are on the earth with Israel. The passage reads, ‘And he shewed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb. [2] In the midst of the street of it, and on either side of the river, was there the tree of life, which bare twelve manner of fruits, and yielded her fruit every month: and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.'
*****
“When you read that, the first thing I think of is, ‘Why do the nations need to be healed? What needs to be healed if all of sorrow, sin, sickness and disease is done away with? What healing needs to be provided for the nations?’
“Well, first of all, what nations are we talking about? You’re talking about the Gentiles. So where did they come from? You’ve got Gentiles that go out of tribulation into the kingdom. All Israel that goes into the kingdom are converted.
“You’ve got Gentiles that go in, but you’ve got Gentiles that come out of the tribulation into the kingdom who are converted but they’re still in natural bodies. They’re not resurrected. They can procreate. They repopulate the earth.
“When you get to the Great White Throne Judgment, only the Believers get past that into the new heavens and the new earth but they still have the capacity to procreate and populate the earth.
“When He says, ‘For the healing of the nations,’ the healing there is not ‘heal them from sin,’ because sin and its degenerative effects have been taken care of. The healing there is sort of, you remember, the guy in Acts 3. Peter and John heal the lame man and he jumped up leaping and goes into the temple. That’s exactly what will happen to Israel; they’ll be redeemed, restored and they’ll go into the kingdom.
“In the next chapter, Peter, referring to that man, says, ‘And his name through faith in his name hath made this man strong, whom ye see and know: yea, the faith which is by him hath given him this perfect soundness in the presence of you all.’
“Healing isn’t necessarily trying to get rid of sinful things. It’s bringing a thing to its full operating capacity. To its ‘soundness.’
“Well, the tree of life that’s going to heal these nations--you remember Adam and Eve in Genesis 3? God says, ‘We’ve got to put a guard around the tree of life because they’ve sinned, and if they eat the tree of life, they’ll live forever.
“What if they had eaten the tree of life before the fall? Wouldn’t it do the same thing after the fall? What the tree of life is going to do is restore and give to these people who are in the condition that Adam and Eve were in. They’ve been restored back to that condition here but they still have the ability to go out and replenish the earth. And so He’s going to extend to them the issue of eternal life.
“Now you have to think of that in the context of the Garden of Eden. I know people say there was no death until Adam sinned. And there was no death because of sin but you have to think about there were life cycles.
“If Adam and Eve ate fruit (the herbs and the fruit of the trees) and they tended to the gardens, when you pull a piece of fruit off a tree, what happens to it? It dies, doesn’t it? If you consume it, it really died in the sense that it’s not connected to a life source anymore.
“So the idea of death in that context of a life cycle was not foreign to Adam. What sin did is it inflicted that kind of a thing. By the way, sin was in the world because of Satan. Sin did not enter into the world of man into our genetic line until Adam sinned. But Satan sinned before Adam did.
“What I’m saying is, Adam is tending the Garden. You think about what was he doing? If the roses have grown too big, what do you do? If they don’t ever grow too big, you don’t need to tend to them. It’s a living, producing creation and Adam was putting it into its proper orderly function. Well, that’s what this healing of the nations is about. It’s bringing these nations to the place where they function fully according to God’s plan.
“Sooner or later, if Isaiah 9:7 is true . . . It says, ‘Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom, to order it, and to establish it with judgment and with justice from henceforth even for ever. The zeal of the LORD of hosts will perform this.’
“Notice it doesn’t say ‘of His government there will be no end.’ It says ‘of the increase and peace of his government.’ Well, if his government is going to continuously grow, the people involved are going to continuously populate and pretty soon you’re going to get a population density on Planet Earth that is unsustainable.
“What was God’s original purpose for His creation? The universe out here. It was to populate it with a creation that brings glory and honor to Him. People say, ‘Well, are there other planets like earth in the universe. Evidently there are.’
“I don’t like to sound like a Mormon when you say this, the idea of you and I as members of the Body of Christ works with Him in His creation and delights in His creation the way He does, which means to me that He’s going to take people back out throughout that universe.
“Another taking a couple out to a new planet in the universe. Find a planet like earth, deposit them there, and have them carry on God’s commission to man: replenish the earth.
“Jesus Christ walked with Adam in the cool of the day; instructed him. You and I, as members of the Body of Christ, have Christ in us and living out through us. He will be admired in us. We will literally be able to represent Him to them.
“And the 33 out there, if this is 7,000 years, that would be 33,000 years to make the 40 in Leviticus 12 for the complete purification; to bring the thing back to the place it was originally at before all that stuff started.
“It’s to complete the cycle and bring that ‘ages of the ages,’ the dispensation of the fulness of time, and what God had created time for. That is, fill up a universe with a creation that glorifies and admires His wisdom and the riches of His grace, which is the plan of His wisdom to defeat the Adversary and demonstrate His character.
“This thing is something marvelous and stupendous. It’s of cosmic impact that God has planned for His Son and that you and I participate in it. And you need to get over worrying about tomorrow and the next day and think about those days and that future out there. Eternity is that it just keeps on going, and it keeps on going, and it keeps on going, and it never stops.”
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