Taking note

Daniel says that upon receiving the vision from an angel in Daniel 10, ‘When he had spoken such words unto me, I set my face toward the ground, and I became dumb.’

Jordan explains, “That’s a good way to be, isn’t it? If an angel starts giving you that kind of stuff the best thing to do is just look down and shut up.

“Daniel says when the angel talked to him ‘straightway there remained no strength in me, neither is there breath left in me.’ You know, folks, you hear people say they saw an angel or something and it didn’t affect them; they’re nuts! Daniel said, ‘Man, it just took the wind right out of me. I mean, it just sapped all my strength. I became just limp.’

“Verse 18 says, ‘Then there came again and touched me one like the appearance of a man, and he strengthened me.’ The angel speaks to him and gives him the word and the word strengthens him. Then the angel said, ‘Don’t you know why I’ve come to you?’

“When Gabriel begins to give him the information that strengthens him. Folks, there are two things that happen when prophetic truth is given out to Daniel and to Israel. No. 1 it strengthens them; it gives them heart strength and courage, and No. 2 it enlightens them. ‘I’m come to make you understand; I’m come to make you know what’s going on.’

“There’s an interesting comparison between this and the Book of Ephesians. Paul prays for the saints there that, ‘The eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that ye may know what is the hope of his calling, and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints.’

“When you begin to get mystery truth, you know what it will begin to do? It enlightens you. It gives you knowledge about what’s going on. Then he says in the other prayer in Ephesians, ‘That he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man.’

“Prophetic truth gave Daniel and the prophetic saints enlightenment and strength, and our truth does the same thing for us.

“Notice in verse 21 is a real touching thing: ‘But I will shew thee that which is noted (marked down) in the scripture of truth: and there is none that holdeth with me in these things, but Michael your prince.’

“You see the angel’s attitude and estimation toward the Word of God? You know what that Book is? Jesus said ‘sanctify them by thy word, thy word is truth.’ Paul said ‘rightly divide the word of truth.’

"Chapter 11:2 says, ‘And now will I shew thee the truth. Behold, there shall stand up yet three kings in Persia; and the fourth shall be far richer than they all: and by his strength through his riches he shall stir up all against the realm of Grecia.’

“You know what Daniel had? He had copies of God’s Word and the angel said, ‘The copies you got there, Dan, and what I’m going to give you to write down, it’s gonna be true.’ That’s fantastic, isn’t it?

“Isn’t it wonderful to know God have you a Book and called it the truth and you don’t have to worry about error and mistake, or human opinion or viewpoint?

“The only absolute final authority in this universe is that Book and that’s why it’s different from every other book in the universe and that’s why the world hates it, can’t stand it, gets upset, gets it’s liver in a quiver every time you pull it out.

“You go get out here on the CTA with a Playboy or a Hustler or a some other godless pornographic thing that doesn’t even have a name on it, and they’ll sit there and pant and look over your shoulder. But you sit there and you get an old black book out and you hold it up and start reading it and you know what they do? They get all nervous.

“I sat on an airplane and the pilot said it was going to be a full flight. I got my briefcase out and got out my Bible and laid it on that seat next to me. The woman who was assigned the seat came up, put her bags up and looked at that book and started looking for another seat!

“You know why that is? Something about that Book, man! That’s God’s word. You know what a saint does? He picks that thing up and he loves it and it’s a friend.

“Look at that old Bible just wore out, coming all to pieces, the back coming off. That’s my friend, man. You know how it is with your Book, don’t you? You wear it out. That’s because you get familiar with your Savior. It’s the Word of truth.”

The closer we get . . .

In a study from the Book of Daniel in Grace School of the Bible, Jordan says, “Once you get to chapter 11 of Daniel you can read what it says and yet it isn’t all clear yet. The reason it’s not clear is that the Lord hasn't opened it up yet. It isn’t all there yet.

“Chapter 10 lays the groundwork and tells you how Daniel got the vision he gets in chapter 11 and 12.

“When this vision takes place, Daniel is about 90 years old. He’s not a spring chicken anymore. He’s had a busy life of service for the Lord and for his king and his government. He started out in chapter 1 between 14-17 years old. Then he goes through the 70 years captivity and that puts him between 84-87 and you add another three years here and he’s between 87-90 years old.

“One of the questions you try to understand when you study the book is when Cyrus king of Persia took over in Ezra 1, he gives a decree for the people to go back to Jerusalem—the 70 years captivity is over with. And only a very small number, less than 40,000 of them, went back and it was a real heartache. And the question arises sometime, ‘Why didn’t Daniel go back?’

“When you get to chapter 10 here and you see Daniel is fixing to get another vision—no doubt one of the most critical, if not the most critically vision in his book, then you understand the reason Daniel doesn’t go back into the holy land in Palestine is because God had further revelations to give him in Babylon.

“So Daniel stays because God has some more things to give him. Daniel 10:1 says, ‘In the third year of Cyrus king of Persia a thing was revealed unto Daniel, whose name was called Belteshazzar; and the thing was true, but the time appointed was long: and he understood the thing, and had understanding of the vision.’

“In other words, Daniel got this thing and it was crystal clear to him what it meant.

“Chapter 12:4. Daniel is told to seal the thing. The prophecy here is sealed up. That is, it’s fixed so people can’t get it and clearly understand it until the time of the end.

“Now the reason you and I can’t put a lot of this prophetic stuff together all the time is because, folks, we don’t live in the times when these things are to be fulfilled.

“As that time comes onto the scene, and the closer you get to it, the more and more people will be able to understand these things, and the people for whom these things are written and intended for over in the prophetic program over in that tribulation period, they’ll be able to get it.

“The wise, chapter 11 says, will understand and God’ll show it to them. So for us, the time element is here.

“Chapter 10:2 says, ‘In those days I Daniel was mourning three full weeks.’ There’s no indication what he’s mourning after, but no doubt it’s the condition of Israel like in Nehemiah 1 and 2 when Nehemiah heard about the condition over in Israel and how bad it was and was real sorry and sad in the king’s presence.

“There’s no doubt it’s something like that. In verse 3 he says, ‘I ate no pleasant bread, neither came flesh nor wine in my mouth, neither did I anoint myself at all, till three whole weeks were fulfilled.’

“That verse is funny to me because that means he didn’t eat and he didn’t take a bath for three weeks. I guess that’d be a guarantee he wasn’t married!

“There’s a point here. Daniel’s retired and he’s up in years, but you notice his spiritual activities haven’t diminished; they’ve increased. Here’s a fellow on a three-week fast. That’s a long time when you’re 30 years old, much less 90!

“A three-week fast and he’s so engrossed in prayer and fasting and seeking the Lord’s face, according to the program he lived under, that he doesn’t even attend to personal needs for three weeks. Tremendous spiritual activity this man has.

“Folks, you ought to take example from that. When you retire, you ought not retire from the things of God. When you retire from public employment, and from making a living and from a retirement program, then you’ve got time to really get out and serve the Lord! You’ve got some free time that you don’t have to go work 40 hours a week.

“I’ve told you about Brother Flemings down in Nokomis, Florida. I heard him one time say, ‘I’ve been preaching 65 years!’ I thought, ‘Man, most people are ready to retire and quit when they’re 65 and he’s just going like a house of fire!’

“Verse 4 says, ‘And in the four and twentieth day of the first month, as I was by the side of the great river, which is Hiddekel.’ Hiddekel is another name for the Tigris River. The Tiger and the Euphrates is where Babylon was. And you notice he gives you the exact date.

“The critics say the Book of Daniel was written at a very late date and yet they never notice the fact that anybody that puts dates in there like that . . . Daniel dates the month and the year and it’s not a late date; it’s the captivity. It’s not something that took place 50-100 years before Christ. So the people who doubt the dates of Daniel just have to doubt the text.

“The passage goes on, ‘Then I lifted up mine eyes, and looked, and behold a certain man clothed in linen, whose loins were girded with fine gold of Uphaz:
[6] His body also was like the beryl, and his face as the appearance of lightning, and his eyes as lamps of fire, and his arms and his feet like in colour to polished brass, and the voice of his words like the voice of a multitude.
[7] And I Daniel alone saw the vision: for the men that were with me saw not the vision; but a great quaking fell upon them, so that they fled to hide themselves. Then I lifted linen gird fine gold beryl polished.’

“That individual he sees there is different than anybody he’s seen before and that individual he’s seeing is really the Lord Jesus Christ.

“Come over to Revelation 1 and compare the vision John had with the vision of the Lord Jesus Christ. You’ll see that the two visions parallel and something’s really interesting here with regard to what Daniel is seeing.

“Daniel is getting a vision and he sees the Lord Jesus Christ but he sees Him in a very special way. He sees Him like nobody else in the Old Testament ever saw him. He sees Him like John sees Him in Revelation 1.

“Rev. 1:12 says, ‘And I turned to see the voice that spake with me. And being turned, I saw seven golden candlesticks.’ You compare that with Daniel 10 and you’ll see they’re almost identical. In Daniel 10 He’s called ‘a certain man’ and in Revelation He’s called ‘the son of man.’ He’s got a girdle of gold in Revelation too, and Daniel says His face was lit up and had the appearance of lightning. Revelation says His head and hair were ‘white as wool.’ Light makes things white. His eyes were as a flame of fire.

“Why is it significant that what you see in Daniel is a comparison to what John sees? Think for just a minute. Was Daniel the only person who ever saw the Lord Jesus Christ in the Old Testament? No, other people saw Him. Other people saw Him in a pre-incarnate appearance, if you’re familiar with that.

“You see, what Daniel’s seeing here, if you compare that with what John saw in Revelation; did John see a pre-incarnate appearance of Christ in Revelation? He saw the glorified Christ. He saw the post-resurrection appearance of Christ. And what Daniel does here is he sees the transfigured post-resurrection appearance, as it were, of Christ. He sees the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ that matches the glory that John sees in the Book of the Revelation. And it tells you something.

“It tells you there’s a connection between what Daniel is fixing to get here, and this information he’s going to get, and where you’re going to go when you go to Revelation. The last vision in the Book of Daniel starts out and it comes from the glorified Son of God in a post-resurrection appearance.

“Daniel had already seen Him crucified. Daniel 9:26 says, ‘And after threescore and two weeks shall Messiah be cut off, but not for himself: and the people of the prince that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary; and the end thereof shall be with a flood, and unto the end of the war desolations are determined.’

“And then in the next chapter and the next vision he sees Him resurrected. He has this resurrection appearance, that when go through it, it ushers you right into the beginning of the Book of the Revelation that carries you on through to the 70^th week of the Book of Daniel over there in Revelation. What you got there is the sort of connectors that connect together the two books.”

Head knowledge

David Reid continues from the same study: “The three persons of the godhead allow God to testify fully and completely, according to His standard of proof, that He exists, without being dependent on anything else in creation. If there was only one God in one person He couldn’t do that. Apparently there’s a divine design to the universe that reflects the character of God Himself.

“The godhead has to exist with one God in three persons for God to be able to bear fully accurate testimony of Himself without being dependent on anything else in the universe. This allows God to be complete by Himself.

“God didn’t need us to give Himself someone to love. What our role is we have the privilege, honor and the incredible grace of God to participate in the love that already existed between the three members of the godhead before the world began.

“The beauty of tying your terminology and your phrasing and vocabulary to the Word of God is you can always come back to the source and figure out whether you’re right or not. The use of extra-biblical terms cannot lead anywhere else but to confusion. It’s just bound to happen. The scriptural word for ‘trinity’ is godhead.

“Guess how many times the word godhead appears in scripture? Three. Isn’t that interesting. You’d almost think there was a design intelligence that inspired it and put it that way. If believe coincidences like that are coincidences, my personal opinion is you’re naïve.

“They’re not coincidences. They’re there because in the divine intelligence of God that’s the way it’s been designed.

“I would suggest to you that if all you believed were those three verses and nothing else it would rule out all the other religions of the world as to the godhead.

Acts 17:29. What that verse tells you is the godhead is fundamentally different from the dumb gods of this world that are carved, made by human hands. It tells you how to think about the molten calf in Exodus, for example.

“Romans 1:18. The first thing that verse tells you is that God’s wrath has been revealed. Does mankind have an awareness of that? Yes, they do. Is the truth elusive, difficult to find and has to be searched out, or is it so close you can actually grip it?

“The first part of the verse tells you it’s a revealed fact that God has wrath against ungodliness. They hold that truth in the midst of unrighteousness, so what that means is man has a keen understanding that he is at enmity with God.

“Verse 19 is a problem for the lost man. What they learn is God has power. If God didn’t have any power, but He had all sorts of wrath against sin, no one would care. The verse indicates the godhead is known to man.

“Daniel 3:24. What do the modern versions do in that passage? They change it so that it’s the lowercase ‘son’; in fact they change it to ‘a son of the gods,’ but that’s not what it says. It’s the capital Son of God.

“What Romans 19 said is that ‘being understood by the things that are made’ included God’s eternal power in the godhead and Daniel 3:25 is just a proof of that. Nebuchadnezzar looks into the fire and what does he think he sees? The Son of God, who is in fact, there! Is Nebuchadnezzar a Bible-believing, Pauline, mid-Acts dispensationalist? NO.

“And yet what happened is when he sees that individual there you can tell by what he says that he has a knowledge that God has a Son. It’s clear as can be!”

Triangular thinking

Ohio preacher David Reid at Shorewood’s summer family Bible conference this past July: “Is there any time in the gospels where Jesus Christ says, ‘Well, the majority text says this and the best reading is this’?

“What He does is He just quotes the Word of God with the firm conviction that it’s true. He doesn’t appeal to logic, or reason, or anything else. He takes it as a given that it’s available and it’s truthful.

“Well, what God said in Exodus 3, when Moses asked for a description of His name, was, ‘I am that I am.’ There’s no appeal to logic or reason. There’s also no appeal to any creative being. He doesn’t say, ‘You can believe it because so-and-so says that He says, I am that I am, and that’s sufficient.’

“If you think about that, what’s the Old Testament standard of proof? Is one witness enough? Deuteronomy 19:15. What Deuteronomy does is it establishes under the law a principle that two witnesses are required. Notice II Corinthians 13:1.

“Is the two or three witness’s requirement something that only happened in the Old Testament or is it a standard of proof that God operates according to throughout time? It’s throughout time. It applies during the dispensation of grace.

“Numbers 35:30. That simply says that if all you have is one witness you can’t testify. It’s inadequate. It’s incompetent as a matter of proof.

“John 5:31. That’s interesting, isn’t it? Can Jesus Christ lie? No because we saw it’s impossible for God to lie. What he’s saying is even the testimony of a single member of the godhead is insufficient, according to the standard of the scripture.

“Verse 32. Obviously three witnesses is preferable and it’s better than two. What’s interesting to think about is what is the strongest geometric shape? A triangle. When you mount a camera or microphone, what do you mount it on?

“John 1:1. That tells you clear as can be that God has existed in more than one person. Luke 22:42. Some people will say God is one God and He doesn’t really exist in three persons; He just has three different ‘modes,’ or three different manners of operation, but in that verse isn’t it absolutely clear that there’s a conversation between two different people going on? They’re apparently different persons with different wills and they can have an actual conversation between them.

“Matt. 3:16. God has to exist in three persons or what do you do with that passage? Plainly there’s something going on there that involves three different people all doing something different at the very same time.

“The very fact that God has a Son is a refutation and a disproof of the notion that monotheism in one person is the correct view.

*****

“God can’t be incomplete and He can’t be dependent on His creation. Does God need something from man or a created being? You know why that matters? If God existed in only one person there would be no one for Him to love in the absence of His creation.

“If there’s only one person in the godhead, there is no one else for God to love. Is there anyone else for God to glorify or to have fellowship with? If God existed in only one person than He would be dependent on some created being in order to have a relationship.

“John 3:35. John 14:31. John 17:24. What happened in eternity past is the three persons of the godhead got together and decided what they were going to accomplish throughout time. They decided they were going to use time to glorify the Lord Jesus Christ.

“John 17:1. The reason the three persons of the godhead exist is to glorify one another. There’s something very shallow about glorifying yourself but there’s nothing shallow at all about glorifying another person.

“Exodus 3:13. There’s a fundamental order to the universe making three the strongest shape. I John 5:7. Look at verse 8. The idea there is there are three that testify. So there are three that bear record in heaven—the Father, the Word and the Holy Ghost and these three are one.

“Let me read to you all of verse 7 in the NIV: ‘For there are three that testify:’

“Listen, people tell you that what the modern versions do is change the ‘thees’ and the ‘thous,’ but that’s not all. When you leave them out in verse 7, then it goes to verse 8 and you think all that’s being talked about in the passage is the water, the blood and the Spirit.

“What verse 7 is really about is it’s saying the three members of the godhead in heaven bear record, testifying to the exact same thing. That ensures that God the Father has satisfied the two or three witness’s standard of proof.”

'Be the church!'

Romans 8:28 says, “And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.”

Jordan explains, “Notice that verse says ‘all things work together for good.’ The good in that verse is not money, fame, popularity, wealth, health and success.

“You’ve already read down through the passage and figured that out. What’s the good in the verse? The good is the purpose of God.

“All of life, good, bad or indifferent, works together for the good. People who love God are people who operate on grace motivation. We love Him because He first loved us.

“What is His purpose in your life? That we should be conformed to the image of His Son. That is fantastic. Galatians 2:20 says, ‘I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.’

“I want to tell you something, folks. The apathy and the shallowness, the worldliness, the failure to give and the burnout in the pulpit and in the pew, the teen dropout rate, the fear of soul-winning, the flabby self-discipline, the maxed-out schedules, the chronic shortage of strong men in the work of the ministry.

“All the problems people point to are not going to be fixed by programs. There are, according to the pollsters, 500 million evangelical Christians in the world. That means there are 3 ½ billion people in the world who are not evangelical Christians.

“You take a piece of paper and do the math. If every evangelical Christian won seven people to Christ this year we’d win the whole world to Christ.

“The reason they’re not going to get to the goal has nothing to do with them not praying enough, sacrificing enough, studying their Bible enough, witnessing enough, working fast enough, trying hard enough, reading enough Christian books, putting enough time into it, living for it. The reason they’re going to get there has nothing to do with any of that!

“It has to do with the fact they don’t rightly divide the Word of truth so they don’t have any idea what they’re really doing. They don’t even know the right message to preach to win people or to have it be the real power of God working through them. So they think the church is a bunch of programs running a building. It’s time you and I, the church, just went and be the church. Let’s go be who we are in Christ.

“Ephesians 4 says, 31] Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice:
[32] And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you.

“The transparent reality that ought to be there will be there. He says in that passage that we’re not to give place to the devil. He’s talking about animosity. He says, ‘Let him that stole steal no more.’ They’ll be the giving. They’ll be a group of people that say, ‘You know, enough is enough! You can only make so much money and use it on yourself. You can only live in so many houses. You can only drive so many cars, have so many boats, so many diamond rings. There’s enough and now I can use my resources to help others that are in need.’

“It says, ‘Be ye kind one to another, tender-hearted.’ There’ll be a genuine community brought together. You know why the godhead is a trinity? Because that’s who God is. The Muslims says, ‘God is one.’ No, He’s not. He’s one God (there’s only one God) but He’s in three persons.

“Did you know a Muslim will cut your head off for that? Their teachings, their doctrine, their religion says you’re a heretic if you don’t believe there’s only one God, one person, one All-Supreme Allah? You can be supreme—the top dog—if you’re just one, but you know there’s some limitations to you.

“Adam was alone and God said it wasn’t good. That’s not the kind of life the trinity lives. You can have two people and you can have unity and harmony and you can say, ‘Well I love you,’ but you know, it’s hard to love when it’s just two people. You know why? Because you never know for sure what would happen if a third person came along. Would they love each other and not me?

“To have community you have to have three or more. And with community, you can have not only harmony, but you can have real love and living for others. When there’s two, you can live for the other person but you’re doing it and you get the byproduct. When there’s three or more, you can live for another and it be just genuine living.

“You know the kind of life that the godhead lives, the kind of life He gave you, is a life that God the Father lives for God the Son and God the Son lives for the Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit lives to glorify the Son. Each member of the godhead lives in community for the other. That’s why Paul says, ‘To make all men see what is the fellowship (not the dispensation).’

“He didn’t say, ‘Make everybody just see the chart.’ He said, ‘Let everybody see the life of Christ in you; The life of the triune God living.’ You don’t see that in buildings. You see that in people. Be the church! The armor is a spiritual armor of doctrine designed to produce the edification and energy so that you’ll just be who you are individually and collectively for His glory.”

Under the influence

Ephesians 6:4 says, “And, ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath: but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.”

Jordan says, “Notice that it’s possible to fail as a father by provoking your children to wrath. That’s something you have to be on guard against. But the positive is to ‘bring them up.’ Notice it didn’t say to ‘send them off to. ‘It didn’t say, ‘Send them over there and let momma teach them.’ It said bring them with you. You go there and take your kids with you because if you’ll go there, the likelihood is they’ll follow you there.

“You know what I’ve learned about being a dad. I learned from my dad that the longer he’s been with the Lord the more impact he has on me. That’s a strange thing. Have you experienced that? The older you get the more you remember what your dad said to you?

“He’d probably be happy that I finally listened to some of the things he said to me. Most of them I didn’t listen to very carefully necessarily while he was alive and I was living at home. My point is those things stick with you through life, for good or bad.

“Now, they’re not excuses. The bad aren’t excuses for you to do bad and the good’s not an excuse for you not to have to do good. They’re just there and the influences come along.

“Ephesians 5:33. You know, you read surveys about what do men need and what do men want. Can I tell you that a man’s first greatest need is not sex. That’s what all the psychologists say. You go in my office and get Chuck Colson’s book about marriage and the first thing he says is every man needs is sex. That isn’t what that verse says.

“When you try to live your life based upon what the world tells you need, you need to look behind what they’re telling you because somebody’s trying to sell you something. Have you caught on to that yet?

“You know why sex sells. I was watching the television the other day and it was just nakedness all over. Not just women but men and so forth. The reason that sells like that is in I Corinthians 11:3: ‘But I would have you know, that the head of every man is Christ; and the head of the woman is the man; and the head of Christ is God.’

“If the head of the woman is the man, when you’re out there selling the woman, who are you really glorifying? The man. There’s a self-centered, self-exalting issue in that. That’s why it’s used to sell because it’s designed to stroke the man’s ego and to suck the man in and to get the man’s pride going. There’s a psychology in that.”

Arrows of words

Proverbs 16: 27-29 says, “An ungodly man diggeth up evil: and in his lips there is as a burning fire.
[28] A froward man soweth strife: and a whisperer separateth chief friends.
[29] A violent man enticeth his neighbour, and leadeth him into the way that is not good.”

Jordan relays, “I read that verse 27 and I wonder what these ‘newsmen’ at CBS, NBC, ABC and CNN think about themselves when they hear that verse. There’s always a motive behind gossip and that’s it. Gossip is a means to an end and that’s to separate people.

“You know what somebody who’s always going out looking for, listening for trying to find the dirt? You ever catch yourself doing that? It says rejoice with them that rejoice. You hear a good report and what do you do?

“ ‘Yeah, man, but there’s something bad about that. Tell me the bad stuff.’ You know, you’re always looking for that, aren’t you? That’s the ungodly nature in you. That’s the ungodly tendency. When you see that, stop! That’s not who you are.

“Psalm 64 says, Hide me from the secret counsel of the wicked; from the insurrection of the workers of iniquity:
[3] Who whet their tongue like a sword, and bend their bows to shoot their arrows, even bitter words:
[4] That they may shoot in secret at the perfect: suddenly do they shoot at him, and fear not.
[5] They encourage themselves in an evil matter: they commune of laying snares privily; they say, Who shall see them?
[6] They search out iniquities; they accomplish a diligent search: both the inward thought of every one of them, and the heart, is deep.’

“Here’s old David. Boy, I know the sentiment of his heart. David’s praying to God and he says, ‘Hide me from the secret counsel of the wicked.’

“The arrows in verses 2-6 are arrows of their words. God’s going to shoot at them with an arrow. It will be His Word coming back at them.

“We’re not to be out seeking iniquity. What are we supposed to seek after? Truth. ‘Buy the truth and sell it not.’ Goodnight, spend your life looking for dirt! You know what will happen? You’ll come away dirty! You don’t go judging in another man’s areas.

“Philippians 4:8 says, ‘Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things..’

“Now if it’s all those things, then you can think about it.  You got to be careful as a leader not to always be over there trying to figure out what’s the matter with so and so. If there’s any virtue, if there’s any praise, look at them with the eyes of grace.

“You know how God looked at Israel? That thing back in Numbers, He said, ‘I haven’t beheld iniquity in Jacob and I haven’t seen sin in Israel.’ They were dropping dead like flies all the way back to Egypt and God said, ‘I don’t see it. I don’t see it.’ That’s God’s justice telling you how He looked at it. That’s how you’re supposed to look at things; the way God does--with a renewed mind, not going to judge someone else: ‘If there’s anything needs fixin’, I’m gonna fix me!’ ”

Construction zone

Romans 14:9 says, “For to this end Christ both died, and rose, and revived, that he might be Lord both of the dead and living.”

“You know what the issue is?” asks Jordan. “Not for you to be Lord but for Him to be. Now, who tells people what to do? The Lord. You’re not the Lord, so don’t try to be somebody you’re not.

“To be ‘fully persuaded in your own mind’ (Romans 14:5) means I have to be fully persuaded about what I’m doing. Now that eliminates careless living by requiring that I purposely think through the practice of my liberty.

“Don’t assume a position you’re not qualified to fill. I mean, first you determine where you stand. Live purposefully yourself. It will take away a lot of the threat that other people give to you if you know where you’re at and why you’re there.

“You see, I know what I believe about something. If I don’t know, then I don’t have an opinion about it. It’s a wonderful privilege not to have an opinion about everything. Get the conviction, have the conviction, know why you stand where you are, and then refuse to play God in somebody else’s life by making their choices for them.

“A mark of maturity is the ability to handle life and have the liberties without flaunting it in front of other people. That’s why in Romans 15:1 he says, ‘We then that are strong ought to bear the infirmities of the weak, and not to please ourselves.’

“You see, we’re in the construction business as Believers, not the destruction business.

*****

“I’m convinced that some of the most dangerous people in the world spiritually are preachers and leaders—Bible teachers. The reason that happens is that, as we grow stronger in the Word of God and in our convictions about things, we feel more strongly about what’s right and what’s wrong.

“I mean, hey, folks, there are some things that are convictions of mine that I feel are absolute and no way to violate them. I mean, my doctrinal convictions, and then the convictions I grow in my life based upon the doctrine, there are some of those things that for me are absolutes. And the more I study and the more I learn, the more strongly I feel about what’s right and wrong on an issue.

“As soon as you do that, you know what you do? You feel more qualified than if you feel you know what’s right and you know what’s wrong. You just feel real qualified to look out there at everybody else and figure out whether they’re right or they’re wrong. You feel more qualified to judge people. The more you grow the more you have to watch out for that because the more dangerous you are in this area.

“The more you grow in leadership you have to watch out because it isn’t going to be long before you’re going to be thinking you’re the last word on the subject and you can go out here and just clean up anybody’s mess anytime and go tell everybody what to do right.

“You got to watch out for yourself in the ministry, and as you grow in grace, that you don’t slip back into this area of becoming everybody else’s critic and judge. It’s real dangerous for people in leadership, whether you’re a pastor or a teacher or just somebody who’s out ahead of everybody else in understanding and doctrine.”   

Grace killers

In Romans 14 there are some guidelines for disagreeing as Paul and Barnabas did in Acts 15 and doing it in the way that magnifies God’s grace.

“There are two tendencies in relationships among Believers that destroy grace,” says Jordan. “One is we see ourselves and compare ourselves among ourselves. In II Corinthians 10 Paul says ‘they that compare themselves among themselves are not wise.’

“The tendency is competition. I look at you, see what you’re doing, and I try to live up to that and I try to exceed you, and I try to do that, and we try to compete with one another. That gives us prejudices and makes us prone to judge one another.

"There’s this legalistic requirement that we all have to be the same. One homogeneous unit where we can smooth the thing down. That’s what legalism does. It says, 'Everybody’s got to be just like everybody else and everybody’s got to be just the way I say everybody’s got to be.'

“That is a grace killer because what grace does is it releases you in Christ and it sets you free and in a competitive environment of comparing yourself one with another.

*****

“The other kind of thing is rigidity and trying to control you by manipulation and intimidation. The fear tactics and the threats and the things that try to bind you and control you and so forth. This thing about control on one hand and competition on the other—what those things do is they don’t allow you to live in an atmosphere where disagreements—legitimate disagreements—and you’ve heard me say time and again, ‘I’ve got a right to my views and my convictions and you’ve got a right to yours.’

“If I’ve got a right to my views, you’ve got a right to yours. If I’ve got the liberty to hold my convictions, I have to give you the liberty to hold yours just by virtue of claiming my own.

“How do you do that graciously? Well in Romans 14 there are 4 basic things here. In the first four verses, No. 1 the issue is accepting one another in Christ: ‘Him that is weak in the faith receive ye, but not to doubtful disputations.’

 “Somebody who’s weak in the faith doesn’t understand everything you do yet. They hadn’t grown as far as you. It’s somebody who’s your brother in Christ but has some difference of opinion on non-essential things.

“The verse says, ‘Receive him.’ Don’t receive him just so you can tear him up! How are you supposed to receive him? Look at chapter 15:6: ‘That ye may with one mind and one mouth glorify God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.’

“Now how did the Lord Jesus Christ receive you? Unconditionally, didn’t He? On the merits of who He is, not on what you did?

“You’re to receive the brother as God for Christ’s sake received you.  Look, the stronger brother isn’t to despise the guy over here, isn’t to hold him in contempt and compare himself as being so much better that the brother over here who doesn’t understand that. He hasn’t gotten as far out of legalism as you have.

“It says, ‘For God hath received him.’ You see, that’s the key. It’s not you receiving him; God received him.  That’s the point and that’s the thing you can’t forget and if you remember that, it will take care of the rest.

“Romans 14:4 says, ‘Who art thou that judgest another man's servant? to his own master he standeth or falleth. Yea, he shall be holden up: for God is able to make him stand. You see, the goal is acceptance and the basis of our acceptance is God’s grace; receiving one another as God for Christ’s sake received us.

“When someone professes and confesses faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and His finished work, then you accept them. And you accept them as brethren. You accept them just the way God accepted them and that’s in Christ.”

The guy who did it

God condemned sin in the flesh two ways. No. 1 by sending Christ in the likeness of human flesh and No. 2 by putting away sin with the sacrifice of Himself.

“That expression about condemning sin in the flesh by Christ being in the likeness of sinful flesh, go to John 15:22:  ‘If I had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin: but now they have no cloke for their sin.’

“He condemned it by first putting it away, then being sacrificed for it and getting rid of it. Sin in the flesh is doomed because of that.

“What Jesus is saying there is, ‘I came down here and I did something nobody else ever did.’ He said, ‘I kept the law perfectly. And if I hadn’t of done that, nobody could have ever been judged for not doing it because nobody ever did it.’

“Everybody always said, ‘But WE couldn’t do it.’ Nobody ever did it. Where’s the guy that ever did it?! And He says, ‘I did it.’

‘So I fixed sin. I fixed it so there isn’t any way sin’s going to get off. He came and by perfect obedience to the law, keeping it perfectly, condemned sin. You see, what the law couldn’t do because we were weak, Christ did. He had perfect continuance in well-doing. Absolute, perfect, sinless righteousness.

*****

“Romans 8:5: ‘For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh; but they that are after the Spirit the things of the Spirit.’

“The issue there is the mind that is behind the walk. The mind is the thinking process. It has to do with taking orders. You say to your children, ‘You better mind me.’ That means think about, concentrate.

“They that walk after the flesh mind the flesh. They focus on THAT. They set their minds on the things of the flesh. Maybe it’s the pleasures of the world. Maybe it’s the satisfaction of things. Maybe it’s gain. Maybe it’s intellectual or religious attainment. It doesn’t have to be wicked things; it can be good things. In fact, in this context, it is good things.

“It’s worshipping God in such a way that the eye is pleased by beautiful buildings and stained glass windows and ornate cathedrals. The ears are pleased by beautiful music and tremendously harmonizing choirs and thunderous instruments and so on.

“The emotions are pleased by solemnity or fanaticism. You don’t have to go get the works of the flesh just out in the honky-tonk. But they focus on those things.

“I was raised in a church where on Sunday morning you went into the service and you didn’t clear your throat because everybody focused on it being peaceful and quiet and there was a sign over top that said, ‘If you whisper, whisper a prayer.’ “

 

 

 

 

We know who we are

“You gotta have the divine viewpoint of tribulations to be bold in tribulation,” says Jordan. “You’ve got to have the divine viewpoint of what’s going on in your life so you’ve got to understand the issue of basic justification in order for you to not be ashamed in tribulations, but to have that boldness that God wants you to have.

“With growth there’s all kind of different problems that come along. Growth always does that, folks. So what you do is, when the problems come, you look at them and by relying on God’s Word and a clear understanding of what we are because we’re justified, of who we are in Christ Jesus, we can endure and go through the problems with peace under whatever the pressure is. What that does is give you skill; ability in handling bigger problems—even greater problems. And that results in hope and confidence in the Lord’s working.

“Of course, people say, ‘Well, wait a minute, if it results in me being able to handle bigger problems, what happens?’ A bigger problem comes.

“I’ve seen saints of God handle problems and I look at them and I say, ‘You know, if that thing was on my shoulders it would kill me.’

“Now, you know how they got so they can handle that kind of problems? Handle littler ones.

“ . . . Listen, people, talk’s cheap. It isn’t easy. It hurts sometime and it’s inconvenient but we don’t work by feelings, do we?

“Romans 5:5 says, ‘And hope maketh not ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us.’ Now that’s the whole gist of the thing. Verses 3-5 bring you to the place that all of a sudden you can appreciate the love that God has for us in a way that you never could appreciate it before. You see, all those things demonstrate God’s love. And you say, ‘Are you sure about that, Charlie?’

“ . . . If I ask you on a test what does ‘agape’ mean, the answer is it’s a mental-attitude love of value and esteem. That definition is by W.E. Vines.

“By ‘knowing that tribulation worketh patience and patience experience and experience hope and hope maketh not ashamed,’ we’re learning how much God loves us. How highly it is that He values and esteems us. We begin to see His love and His value and His esteem for us. And it says that love is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit.

“ . . . Basic information Paul assumes that you understand is that you and I are possessors of God the Holy Spirit that He’s given to us and that He has a purpose. He sheds the love of God abroad in our heart. That ‘shed abroad’ is like a great river coursing and flowing over our soul. It just comes in and courses in and flows in over us.

“You know that commercial that says, ‘Take the Nestea Plunge?’ and you see this old hot guy that just falls off into that pool and you almost want to go, ‘Ahhh,’ when you see him go under.

“That’s this idea. It’s just the love of God completely flowing over you and refreshing you. It’s the Holy Spirit that takes all of these things as they happen to us. It’s the Holy Spirit that takes the Word of God that we understand and builds up in our soul strength. We’re strengthened by His Spirit in the inner man.

“People, it’s the Word of God that energizes us. God’s Spirit works through His Word, and He takes what we know about these things, and as He takes that Word and builds up in our soul what’s going on here, there’s strengthening—keep relying on the Book—and it’s the ministry of the Holy Spirit.

“You and I have a hope that the world doesn’t have but we’ve also been ‘left’ in this world. Now the world has tribulation; the world has trouble. If the world has trouble, they can’t boast in the trouble.  That’s just what comes.

“But we’re able to boast in the trouble. So He leaves us here and we suffer the common lot of the world but whereas the world wrings it’s hands and says, ‘Oh, me, oh my,’ we look at it and say, ‘Oh, gee, it’s wonderful.’ We know those things work; they have a purpose in our life. We know what’s going on. We know where we’re going and we know who we are.”

 

   

Equipment included

People look at Grace Believers and say, “Aghh, that’s just escapism!” The response is, “No, man, it’s equipping! It’s something that can be used for God’s glory!”

Jordan says, “Troubles come and when they come, they check you out, as it were. We can rejoice in problems. Now, I told you before, no sane person just rejoices in trouble for trouble’s sake. That would be kind of sadistic.

“Paul says, ‘We glory in tribulation also KNOWING THIS.’ That word ‘also’ there strikes me. Can you get as excited about problems and difficulties now as you do about getting out of them out yonder?! That’s kind of hard, isn’t it? But he says we know something that lets us do it.

“Experience is that PROOF that you have that the Word of God works in your life. It’s the maturity of character and that greatness of soul that comes from having truth that you know to be true transferred into the details of your life.

“Hope is that confidence expectancy of better things yet to come. In other words, when you get some skill at handling problems, you gain confidence in God’s sustaining power. You gain confidence in the grace of God to deliver you and sustain you in trouble. You find out God isn’t really going to let you down.

“The end result is we have an increased confidence in God to sustain and deliver us. We’re not ashamed but we’re bold in the situations. We can look at it and say, ‘God’s working!’

“When you get all that stuff and it looks like a wreck, just hang a sign out that says, ‘GOD AT WORK!’ Not in a negative but a positive manner. But you’ve got to have the divine viewpoint of tribulations to be bold in tribulations.

“Listen, people, there’s never any growth without pressure. There’s never any growth without obstacles. There’s never any growth without problems.”

  

  

Synchronicity

We pray with limited knowledge and limited resources. The Holy Spirit prays for the things we’re unable to express and that helping ministry of the Holy Spirit makes intercession for us.

“Just like we groan in pain together, likewise the Spirit groans too and He’s groaning in order to identify Himself with us and to help us in our experience,” says Jordan. “That ought to tell you how deeply interested and how personally involved in your life God Himself, because the Holy Spirit is the third person of the Godhead, is.

“God the Holy Spirit who indwells you is concerned that you pray correctly. God is intimately involved and active in your life to the point that He even makes intercessions for you when you don’t even know what to pray for with groanings that you couldn’t express. He’s active. He’s that deeply interested and personally involved in your life. You don’t need to forget about that. You need to learn to cry with the spirit, ‘Abba, Father.’ You need to learn to pray as He does.

“He knows what the will of God is. He knows how to pray in tune with it and so He can pray in line with that and give activity to your prayers.

“What are you supposed to pray about? Folks, there is not anything that’s on your heart that God doesn’t want you to come to Him with it. If it’s on your heart, He already knows about it. What He’s after is the communion between you and Him—the openness; the intercourse back and forth.

“Praying in the spirit has to do with praying in line with what the Holy Spirit is praying. You don’t know how God can best be glorified in every given situation in your life, but the Holy Spirit does. You pray in line with what you know the Holy Spirit is doing and He begins to adjust your prayer life to bring about in you synchronization between what you’re praying and what He wants you to pray and that’s an active ministry that the Spirit of God performs in your life.

“Now He doesn’t come back to your head and go, ‘Psst, psst, psst! Pray this instead of that!’ He does it through that capacity that you build up with sound doctrine in your soul.

 “As you exercise that sonship privilege of discernment, living consistent with your position, then you begin to take these details in life and know how to handle them and you know what that winds up being? That’s praying in the Spirit. That’s how prayer operates today.

“If you can see what’s going on in the issue of suffering NOW you can actually—you know ‘endure’ is not the right word and ‘waiting out’ is not the right word. You can REJOICE in the things!”