I'm in heaven

A lot of people think of eternal life as just going to live forever in heaven. “Eternal life isn’t living forever,” says Jordan. “Everybody’s going to live forever, folks. Eternal life isn’t just existing forever. And it isn’t EXISTING in heaven.”

“Paul writes in II Corinthians 1:22: ‘Who hath also sealed us, and given the earnest of the Spirit in our hearts.’

“The emphasis in the ‘earnest’ is not just that you’re guaranteed to get there; the seal did that. The earnest is telling you that you have the Holy Spirit present in your life today as a foretaste of that; That this isn’t all just out yonder but here as a present reality of that life that’s going to be lived out there.

“The point is, it’s your PRESENT possession. You don’t have the full reality of it yet, but you’ve got the foretaste, just like when you make the down payment (on a condo) you put $100 down; there’s $900 coming. There’s a whole lot more we want to get later on, but we’ve got this NOW!

“John 17:3 is a verse you need to circle and keep in your heart. This is life eternal. You want to know what it is—Jesus is fixin to tell you: ‘And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.’

“Eternal life isn’t just going to heaven and living forever; it’s having an intimate personal relationship with God the Father through His Son the Lord Jesus Christ. There’s contact, commune, knowledge of the Creator and His plans and purpose and how He’s going to bring it about through His Son.

“That eternal life is your privilege to possess right now. You don’t have to wait until you die and go to heaven to get it! You’ve got the earnest of it right now and the Holy Spirit’s presence in your life is the GUARANTEE of that future fulfillment, but He’s also the present reality of that future glory.

That’s why Paul can say in Romans 6:13, ‘Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin: but yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God.’

“You can bring that life into your life now because it is there. But how does it work? How do you get it to operate? How do you get that life to flow and function?”

*****

We know the Messiah is going to claim the throne of David by divine right but, as Jordan says, “There is a problem in the accomplishment of that promise in your Bible.

“I’ve been fascinated through the years how many premillennial, fundamental dispensationalists don’t know about this problem, and how many anti-dispensationalists do.

“Luke 1:30 says, ‘And the angel said unto her, Fear not, Mary: for thou hast found favour with God.’ Gabriel is here announcing to Mary the issue of the virgin birth of Jesus Christ. In verse 34 she says, ‘How shall this be, seeing I know not a man?’

“I’ve always found it funny that the RSV says she says, ‘Seeing I have no husband.’ Twelve and 13-year-old kids in the public school system can tell you how you can have a baby without having a husband! That’s kind of a dumb way to translate that.

“Well, how can it be? Mary’s a virgin. Verse 35 says, ‘And the angel answered and said unto her, The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee: therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God.’

“The virgin birth is necessary in order for verse 32-33 to be accomplished. Not just to accomplish your redemption, but so that the Messiah can reign on the throne of His father David forever. Now, why did I say that?

“Come back to Jeremiah 22. Before the captivity of Israel into Babylon, there was a guy on the throne of Jerusalem called Jeconiah and God was so upset, angry, so much in a rejecting mood of Jeconiah, verse 24 says, ‘As I live, saith the LORD, though Coniah the son of Jehoiakim king of Judah were the signet upon my right hand, yet would I pluck thee thence;’

“The ‘Je’ on Jeconiah is Jehovah. He says, ‘Take my name off that dude’s name! Don’t even put my name on him! Just call him Coniah. I don’t want to be associated with that guy at all! He’s that rotten.’

“Verse 29-30: O earth, earth, earth, hear the word of the LORD.
[30] Thus saith the LORD, Write ye this man childless, a man that shall not prosper in his days: for no man of his seed shall prosper, sitting upon the throne of David, and ruling any more in Judah.

“Now here’s a message from the prophet of Israel in Jeremiah for the whole world to listen to. ‘Write this man childless.’

“You’ve got David, Solomon, Jeconiah. And he says, ‘Nobody from that line is ever going to sit on the throne.’ Well, then how are you going to get a Messiah, a son of David, to sit on the throne?

“David had another son by the name of Nathan. Mary’s lineage in Luke 3 comes from Nathan. Mary is not the mother of God; she’s the mother of His humanity. Jesus Christ’s human connection. So He’s the Son of David, not through Solomon or Jeconiah, which is written childless, but He’s the Son of David through Nathan via the virgin birth.

“In fact, if you look in Matthew 1, Joseph is the son of David through Solomon. And as his earthly father, adopted father, the Lord Jesus Christ could claim the rights to the throne from Solomon through Joseph, but the verse that says that nobody of this guy’s seed shall ever sit there, well, it isn’t Joseph’s seed that produced the Lord Jesus Christ. It’s God’s seed through Mary.

“So when he says in Psalm 89:4 that ‘thy seed will I establish for ever, and build up thy throne to all generations,’ come over to Psalm 132:1: ‘LORD, remember David, and all his afflictions.’ The essence of the Davidic covenant is that verse right there.

“God made David a promise that it would be the fruit of His body that would sit on that throne. That the Messiah would be of the seed of David. That seed line is important.

“I don’t tell people about this because I don’t like to give the guys on the other side of the table ammunition to argue about it, but if anybody ever brought this up to you, the answer is it’s true that Coniah, the royal line, gets cut off there. That’s where the virgin birth comes in because the virgin birth . . .  Joseph being His legal father has the legal rights to his father’s inheritance, which would be the throne, but he has the lineage (the literal right) as a son of David through Mary.

“To me that’s fascinating. That’s one of the most fascinating intricacies about God’s Word about how God’s protected His Son in spite of the failure of man.”

*****

In Psalm 89:5 the writer’s going to begin to celebrate the Jesus Christ. Verse 9 says, ‘Thou rulest the raging of the sea: when the waves thereof arise, thou stillest them.’

“He has POWER over nature. That’s why you’ll see Christ stand and say, ‘Peace, be still.’ We sing that song, ‘The winds and the waves shall obey Thy will,
Peace, be still!
Whether the wrath of the storm tossed sea,
Or demons or men, or whatever it be
No waters can swallow the ship where lies
The Master of ocean, and earth, and skies;
they all shall sweetly obey Thy will,
Peace, be still! Peace, be still!
They all shall sweetly obey Thy will,
Peace, peace, be still!

“He demonstrates Himself, by walking on water and so forth, that He’s Jehovah. Verse 10 says, ‘Thou hast broken Rahab in pieces, as one that is slain; thou hast scattered thine enemies with thy strong arm.’

“Rahab is another name for Egypt, and when he broke Rahab in pieces, write down by that verse Isaiah 51. In that chapter he’s associated with a dragon; Satan.

“When God brought them out of Egypt, He brought them out of satanic captivity. But when He breaks Rahab, that’s a tribulation passage prophecy about the last days.”