Framing effect

Hebrews 11:3 says, “Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.”

 “He says by faith we know that the worlds were created by the Word of God,” explains Jordan. “Psalm 33:6 says, ‘By the word of the LORD were the heavens made; and all the host of them by the breath of his mouth.’

“God said He spoke and things were created. ‘Things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.’

“In other words, they came out of invisible resources. Well, who’s in the invisible resources? God was. When He says the worlds were framed by the Word of God, when you frame something, you have a plan. You frame an idea. You have a pattern for something; a mold.

“Romans 1:20 says, ‘For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse.’

“God used some resources in Himself that He created the universe out of and the things that you see are a reflection of something that was in the Creator to start with.

“Proverbs 3:19 says, ‘The LORD by wisdom hath founded the earth; by understanding hath he established the heavens.’

“In other words, when He sat down to create heaven and earth, He already had a blueprint on His table to do it. He already had in His mind what He was going to create, and when He starts creating and framing the worlds by His Word, it was His wisdom, His knowledge and His understanding that put that out there. He had the plan already. He’s putting it together according to the pattern.

“Proverbs 8:11 says, ‘For wisdom is better than rubies; and all the things that may be desired are not to be compared to it. In the chapter’s all the benefits of following wisdom.

“Now, watch what He says about this. This is why it’s so. Verse 22 says, The LORD possessed me in the beginning of his way, before his works of old.’ Commentaries take that and make that a reference to Jesus Christ. They say this is Jesus talking because He’s called ‘the wisdom of God’ in Luke 11.

“What this really is God had this wise plan by which He was going to frame the worlds and the wise plan’s, ‘Let me tell you about myself.’ When He says in verse 22 that the Lord possessed me, that’s the Lord Jesus Christ.

“And when Jesus Christ set out there to make the universe out of nothing, ‘I was there with him before he created anything.’ So when the Lord Jesus Christ came out of the precipice of nothing, He already had a wise plan. He didn’t just go out there one morning and say, ‘I wonder what I’m going to do today. Oh, I know what, I’ll create a universe!’

“Verse 30 says, ‘Then I was by him, as one brought up with him: and I was daily his delight, rejoicing always before him.’

“You know, if you got somebody brought up with you, that’s a way of saying, ‘We were inseparable.’ Somebody brought up with you is your friend and is your constant companion.

“You remember in Genesis 1 when He does the six days, at the end of those days He says, ‘It’s good.’ Wisdom says, ‘Daily I was His delight. When the Lord Jesus Christ created things, as the Creator God, He had a plan.

“As the king eternal, as the creator God, the Lord Jesus Christ is the Chief Executive Officer. He rules over creation, He directs creation, He harnesses creation. And when it says He’s the king eternal, that’s not just the physical creation; that’s all of the ages that fill up the creation.

“We talk about people’s ‘immortal soul’ but that’s not Scripture. We talk about your immortal, never-dying soul to someone, but that’s not what the word ‘immortal’ means. The word itself means ‘imperishable’; it doesn’t perish and that’s what we mean when we call it an immortal soul.

“Immortality is a reference to resurrection life. The passage in I Corinthians 15 says, ‘Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed,
[52] In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.
[53] For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality.
[54] So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory.’

 “Everybody’s going to be changed. This dead person, who’s body is getting moldy in the grave, has put on incorruption and this mortal, a person who is not dead yet but is going to die, must put on immortality.

“Notice verse 53. He gets a body that won’t die again. This mortal fellow, who has not yet physically died but is subject to death, is going to put on immortality. He’s going to put on a body that is never subject to dying.

“I Timothy 6:16 says, ‘Who only hath immortality, dwelling in the light which no man can approach unto; whom no man hath seen, nor can see: to whom be honour and power everlasting. Amen.’

“He says only Jesus Christ has immortality. Well, if only He has has it, do you have it? The answer is, ‘Not yet. You’ll get it in the resurrection.’ ”

(Editor's note: More to come tomorrow)

 

Creatures animated by Satan

Change is never easy. Right now, I’m writing in the guest bedroom at my mom’s old sewing desk with my knees hitting the wood and metal contraption underneath that holds the hidden sewing machine in place. The chair is so low I’m typing with my hands and wrists fully on the keyboard. The lighting’s not good either.

The whole idea of putting me in the basement hasn’t proven a workable one, to say the least. The acoustics alone are enough to make you stark-raving mad. Every sound the house makes (not to mention the myriad of man-made noises like the TV, radio, phone, shower, washing machine, dishwasher, heater, etc.) is magnified in the cold and dreary spot with super-bad lighting. It’s terrible to try and concentrate.

*****

Jordan explained on a recent Sunday morning, “There’s one thing I know: God’s Word works when you trust it, and it doesn’t when you don’t. The verse says, ‘It works effectually in you that believe it.’

“If you don’t say, ‘This is what makes the choices for me,’ it doesn’t work, but when you do believe it, it works quickly and powerfully. It becomes energy in your life.

“Romans 8:22 says, “For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now.” I want you to notice in verse 20, he says, ‘For the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who hath subjected the same in hope.’

“Verse 21 says, ‘Because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God.’ Then in verse 22, he says, ‘For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now.’

“For time immemorial you’ve been told the word ‘creature’ should be ‘creation.’ All the new bibles take II Corinthians 5:17 and they change the word ‘creature’ into ‘creation.’ But it’s fascinating that your King James Bible doesn’t do that.

“That word ‘creature’ is like that word ‘quicken.’ It means something special beyond simply creation. This podium here is a creation. It’s real but it’s not alive. The word creation means something created. The word creature means a LIVING creation. A creature is talking about something teeming with life. They’re both made by God, but one is talking about the life associated with what’s created.

*****

“Romans 1:25 says, ‘Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen.’

“You go back in Isaiah and Psalms, when Israel set up those idols, it was the spirit behind the idols; the unclean spirit that inspired the idol. Psalm says all the gods of the nations are idols. There’s something behind that and that idol’s just the manifestation of this evil spirit.

“When they worshipped the creature more than the Creator, they’re worshipping these living beings that were using the creation for its own purposes. In other words, there’s a satanic rebellion program, an Adversary, who has his own purpose in using the universe—the earth and the heavens.

“There’s this life that God wants to fill His heavens with, and the earth is enveloped by this creature, and is down in the heart of it, and there’s this animated life force. When it says we’re delivered from the prince the power of darkness, that’s saying there’s an animating force behind what’s going on in the world.

“Ephesians 6:12 says, ‘For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.’

“Satan has authority up there. He does. Ephesians 2:2 says, ‘Wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience.’

“When it says he’s the prince of the power of the air, he’s the head of the government in all of the invisible realm. But the reason he would say ‘the prince of the power of the air;’ that’s the realm where you and I live. In other words, he’s not just the authority in heavenly places and in hell; he’s the authority in the world that you function in; that lost people live in.

“He’s the one who’s directing and promoting the philosophy, the course of this world. He’s promoting it so he can eliminate the Creator. How he exerts his influence and leadership, ‘he’s the spirit that now works in the children of disobedience.’

“He has access, as it were, to their will. He works in their spirit, in their inner man. They have no Savior. They have no Holy Spirit within them. They have no light and truth within them.

“The genius of unsaved people is satanically inspired. He uses that to captivate them--to convince them they’re God and to eliminate any ability on their part to see any glory in the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ.

*****

“There’s a difference between being somewhere and dwelling somewhere. When you dwell somewhere, that means, ‘I’m going to settle down and feel at home.’ When you dwell somewhere, you’re home. To dwell is more than just being there.

“God doesn’t dwell in the second heavens today. That doesn’t mean He can’t be there. He’s dwelling in the third heaven. II Cor. 12. That’s why they pray, ‘Thy kingdom come thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.’ Where God dwells His will is accomplished.

“Currently there is a rebellion in the heavenly places in the second heavens. The Adversary is dwelling there. He went out and merchandised his plan to the angelic host and that’s why the emphasis is on ‘principalities, mights and dominions.’

“He went out and literally merchandised his lie program to the upper echelons in the heavenly places and those angelic host followed him in the lie program. That’s why a third of them fall out of the heavens into the earth in Revelation 12 because the devil and his angels get kicked out. But they’re the ones who are controlling the LIFE in the heavenly places today. They’re the ones making a creature out of the creation.

“Romans 8:19 says, ‘For the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God.’

“Notice the creature has an earnest expectation. If you changed that to ‘creation,’ how would that desk have an earnest expectation? You see why the word ‘creation’ doesn’t work there? Because He puts living terminology in relationship to the subject He’s talking about, so the translators understood immediately that it was more than just a creation.

“There’s something special that has an ‘earnest expectation.’ To be earnest about something, that’s your attitude about it. You’ve got this intense attitude. ‘Earnest expectation’ means it has some intelligence to be able to do . . . There’s something it’s thought about in the future out there.

“You see, were not just talking about the places. We’re talking about the creatures and the life that are animated in the places. ‘Waiteth’ is another word. You see these are terms that describe life.

“What are they waiting for? The manifestation of the sons of god. The creature was made subject to vanity in order to display the true nature of the one who is manifesting his life. Then there’s that ‘bondage of corruption.’ That’s the condition of the life that’s there now.

“The life that animates the heavens today is a life of bondage and corruption. Go back to Ezekiel 28 and you’ll see how Satan corrupted His wisdom and filled his kingdom there with iniquity and the bondage that comes from it.

“By the way, when he uses that term ‘you’re a new creature,’ he’s going to replace that creature that’s up there now, the bondage of the corrupt one, with a new creature.

“Instead of manifesting the life in the satanic program, you’re going to manifest the life of the Lord Jesus Christ. The wisdom, knowledge and understanding that’s in Him, you’re going to put on display. That’s why I said reigning with Him is more than just sitting on the throne telling people what to do.”

Humility of mind

After seeing Ann Coulter on Fox News the other night, hawking her new book on the evils of liberalism, I was curious to see what she said was a whole chapter devoted to Christianity.

 

Looking at the book today at the neighborhood Barnes & Noble, I came across this excerpt from an interview she once gave to Beliefnet:

 

Q: “You say you’re a Christian? Do you think Jesus would want you to be nicer to your political opponents?”

 

A: “Who knows? Maybe He’ll say I was too tough or He’ll chastise me for not being tough enough on those who hate Him. Ask the money-changers in the temple how 'nice' Jesus was. Maybe He’ll say I needed more jokes or fewer adjectives. I’ll just apologize for not getting it right and thank him for dying for my sins.”

 

Obviously there are all kinds of problems she reveals about herself as a self-professed Christian in just this one little snippet (let alone the rest of the chapter!) but one aspect for sure is her flippancy, arrogance and pride. 

 

***** 

 

“Pride is to have too big a view of your own importance and too little a view of God,” says Jordan in an old study. “The verse says, ‘And to walk humbly with thy God.’ Humility is the opposite attitude of pride. Humility is not saying, ‘I’m nothing, I’m worthless, I’m a worm.’ Humility is not being chopped liver, folks. That sense of, ‘I’m nothing, I’m a worm,’ that’s really—listen to me—that’s really self-pity and that’s just another form of pride. You hear that?

 

“Paul writes in Romans 12:3, ‘For I say, through the grace given unto me, to every man that is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think; but to think soberly, according as God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith.’

 

“When he says over there in Acts 20, ‘Serving the Lord with all humility of mind,’ that’s Paul’s expression of what he writes in Ephesians 4 about walking in ‘lowliness and meekness.’ It’s understanding there’s a great God. He’s big; I’m not the issue. It’s understanding who I am in Him.

 

“I Corinthians 4:7 is a verse of scripture that always strikes me when I think of humility: ‘For who maketh thee to differ from another? and what hast thou that thou didst not receive? now if thou didst receive it, why dost thou glory, as if thou hadst not received it?’

 

“If you’ve got some God-given natural abilities or talent to do this or that or the next thing, where’d you get that? Well, you got it because of who God made you.

 

“When you read the part, ‘Now if thou didst receive it, why does thou glory, as if thou hadst not received it?’ do you understand what that’s saying? That doesn’t take a fifth-year student in Greek to exegete that.

 

“ ‘God made me and I belong to Him, and every good thing I have is a gift from the Almighty, so I just need to do the best with what God gave me and I’m not going to act like He didn’t give it to me and I did it myself.’

 

“That verse says, ‘You know, you shouldn’t get all puffed about something you’re good at it because who is it that made you good at it? That’s humility of mind, and I’m not just talking about believing, I’m talking about life in general.

 

“When you realize who God is and who you are in relationship to Him, you walk in that light. That’s what the verse says God required. That’s the good He’s seeking.

 

“Now, you know the problem with that, right? We fall short, don’t we? But those three words—justice, mercy and humility—describe the heart God wants because God wants the real you.

 

“Did you ever learn the poem, ‘What shall I give Him poor as I am. If I were a shepherd I’d give Him a lamb. If I were a wise man, I’d do my part. But what shall I give Him? I’ll give Him my heart.’ That’s what God desires.

 

“You say, ‘How do I give Him my heart?’ Paul says, ‘With a heart man believes unto righteousness.’ Do you live that way on a daily basis, or does living for the Lord just become, ‘Well, that’s what we do.’ You ever tell your kids that? You know, the kids are growing up and they ask, ‘Uh, why we got to go to church?’ and you answer, ‘That’s what we do—that’s who we are.’

 

“I know with me, three or four times a day I have to stop and look myself in the eye of my heart and ask, ‘Ricky, what are you doing and why are you doing it?’ And if isn’t coming out of my heart, see, I need to make an adjustment. I might not need to change what I’m doing . . .

 

“Was it good for Israel to give the best they had? Yes. Was it good for them to give in great exuberance and quantity? Yes. Then why wasn’t that enough? Because it didn’t come out of a heart of faith. It didn’t come out of a heart that reflected His life—His justice, His mercy, His attitude.”

 

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               

Body and soul

When you get saved your dead spirit is made alive and God puts life into every part of it.

“You don’t just have the ability to communicate with God, you have God IN you,” explains Jordan. “He puts up a residence, in the third member of the godhead, and infuses and plants His life into you. That’s a radical difference! As an unsaved man, your soul and body were literally stuck together.

“The sins in your body . . . your soul just gave up. It was a servant to sin. You ever read in the Old Testament where it talks about ‘the soul that toucheth this will die?’ How can a soul touch something? He’s talking about the body. That gets people confused.

“A lot of folks will get confused when they read the Old Testament and God will be talking about the soul and you read it and say, ‘Well, He’s talking about the body.’ That’s because those two things in Scripture are one until the Crosswork of Christ comes in.

“And when Jesus Christ died at Calvary, He literally circumcised—Colossians 2:13 says you were circumcised with the circumcision not made with hands in the putting off the body of the sins of the flesh. There’s Romans 6:6.

“So when you were crucified with Christ, there’s a radical change. You’re literally set free from the bondage of sin. You know how radical you’ve been changed? This is what the Bible calls your NEW man.

“When he talks about the body of sin, in the old setup the sin ran everything. It walked according to the course of this world, ‘according to the spirit that now works in the children of disobedience.’

“Every thought it had was in line with the course of this world. Its whole thinking process was to follow Satan’s thinking; the lie program. We don’t work that way anymore. Now the work is from the inside out. God’s Word renews our mind, that word, that life, trusts it and believes it and out through our body it works out.

“Romans 7 uses an illustration. Verse 7:7 says, ‘What shall we say then? Is the law sin? God forbid. Nay, I had not known sin, but by the law: for I had not known lust, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet.’ He’s talking about bringing this identity from chapter 6 into the operating system of your life.

“The law gives you the knowledge of sin. Verse 14 says, ‘For we know that the law is spiritual: but I am carnal, sold under sin.’ Does that sound like a guy having a good time in life? Is Paul really carnal sold under sin?

“No, he’s a new man in Christ Jesus. You see what’s happened to Paul is he’s lost the confidence of his identity in Christ. He’s living in error. When you live as a Believer in condemnation like that, you’re not living as you are in Christ; you’re living over here in your resources and you come up short. That’s not who he is.

“You’re free from sin; you became the servants of righteousness. He’s changed all that about you. What Paul’s doing in verse 14 is he’s thinking about himself like he’s still lost. The first thing that happens when you respond to sin on a performance-based system over here is it condemns you and when you look at the law and it says, ‘Thou shalt not,’ and you did, what does it do? It works death.”

“So he says in verse 14, ‘I’m just worthless. I’m no good. I’m helpless. I have no value. I’m just a worthless, valueless failure.’

“In verse 18, he says, ‘For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not.’

“He’s saying, ‘I’m just no good.’ If you want it even better, read verse 24: ‘O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?’

“Does that sound like a happy, victorious Christian? No, he’s conscious of his failure. He says, ‘I’m wretched. I’m unloved. Nobody loves me. Look at the condition I’m in.’ That’s where thinking this way gets you.”

'Who will all our sorrows share'

It is amazing how many great hymns from history were born of sad things and accompanying intense emotions—the death of a loved one, personal tragedy, ailments and impairments, tremendous physical and/or mental hardships, on and on.

I was quite surprised to learn that the author of a very favorite hymn of mine since childhood, “What a Friend We Have in Jesus,” is speculated to have actually committed suicide!

“There are conflicting reports about the death of Joseph Scriven,” writes Helen Salem Rizk in her 1964 book, “Stories of the Christian Hymns.” “Some authorities say he died of natural causes; others that he took his life in a fit of melancholia. However, they all agree as to the humility and kindness that ruled his days from the great tragedy on the eve of his marriage, when his bride-to-be accidentally drowned, to the day of his death in 1886.”

Considered one of the ten most popular Christian hymns ever published, “What a Friend We Have in Jesus” was discovered “in a very dramatic manner,” says Rizk. “When Scriven, who lived an extremely tragic life, was in his last days, a friend who was sitting with him during a time of severe illness came upon the manuscript. The friend was very impressed and wondered why it never had been published. Scriven replied, ‘What a Friend We Have in Jesus,’ has been written by God and me to comfort my mother during a time of great sorrow.’

“He explained that he never intended that it be used by anyone else. Strange are the ways of fate; a song written only for the life and need of one person became the inspiration of millions!”

*****

The classic hymns, “O For a Closer Walk with God” and “There is a Fountain Filled With Blood,” were written by the son of a clergyman, William Cowper (born in England in 1731), who four times in his life was committed to insane asylums; many times he attempted suicide, says Rizk.

“His sixty-nine years of life were physical torture and mental anguish,” she writes. “The burden of his mental affliction and at times partial insanity was lightened by his desire and ability to write . . . This suffering man was loved by many and known to be a true Christian. He was able to produce some of our sweetest and most spiritual hymns.

Of “There is a Fountain Filled With Blood,” she noted, “People have sung this grand old favorite through the years. Probably unaware of the struggle Cowper had in his life, they see only the beauty and feeling reflected in this hymn.”

*****

For George Matheson’s “O Love That Wilt Not Let Me Go,” Rizk summarizes, “This great hymn of courage and faith was written, strangely enough, under circumstances of tragic inner conflict and severe mental suffering as a release from personal tragedy . . . The courage and fortitude of Dr. Matheson (1842-1906) was evidenced by the dramatic fact that from this deep sorrow and heartache he could write: ‘O love that wilt not let me go, I rest my weary soul in thee.’ ”

*****

The classic of classics, “Sweet By and By,” is written by Sanford Filmore Bennett (1836-1898).  “It is said that this entire hymn, including words by S.F. Bennett and music by J.P. Webster, was written and composed in less than 30 minutes,” Rizk’s book confirms. “Webster, who was subject to moods of melancholy and depression, once visited his friend Bennett who was writing at his desk.

“Walking to the fire, Webster turned his back to his friend without a word. When Bennett asked him what the matter was, he received the curt reply that ‘it would be alright, by and by.’ Seizing upon the last three words, Bennett exclaimed, ‘The sweet by and by! That would make a good title for a hymn!’

“Whereupon, he wrote without stopping, covering the paper as fast as his pen could go. When he finished he handed the manuscript to Webster, who immediately sat down and composed a melody to fit the stirring words. From this union in the village of Elkhorn, Wisconsin, the gospel hymn was born: ‘There’s a land that is fairer than day, And by faith we can see it afar, For the Father waits, over the way, To prepare us a dwelling-place there.’ ”

*****

Proverbs 23 says, ‘For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he.’

Jordan explains, “Your heart has a mind to it. It has a capacity to think. Paul says in Romans 10:10: ‘For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.’

“So a part of your heart is the fact you have a will. You’re able to choose. You can will. Believing is to choose to accept and trust something. Your heart is where your will is, but your heart also has emotions. You can be exceedingly sorrowful. Those three components make up your soul.

“Your constitution when God made you—the way He designed you, you have a spirit, soul and body. Your will takes the things in your mind and believes it, trusts it and depends on it. Your will, making a choice to depend on something, gives that thing you’re trusting control of your life. When your will makes the choice, your emotions can respond to your will and the action comes out of there.

“Take the E off of emotion and what do you have? Motion. The connecting point between your soul, your mind, your inner man and your body, it’s sort of like the connection is involved in your emotions. What happens is your emotions are a function of your soul that can reach into your physical frame and stimulate it. It can shoot the adrenalin. You know, all the different emotions.

*****

“Love and fear are the two ultimate emotions. Every other emotion you have is a gradation of those two, and for some, a combination of them. Your emotions are designed to make you move, get you acting, because there’s something inside of you that’s working out of you.

“Your emotions are absolutely dumb. They have no intellect at all. The facts of life, of a situation, do not determine your experience. It’s how you THINK about those facts that determine your experience.

“If you were to get news that your family had been in a horrific accident and killed, how would you feel? You’d feel devastated because you believed a report. You have no factual evidence; all you’re doing is believing what someone told you. The facts may be entirely different. Somebody might be lying to you.

“When your mind is programmed by truth, then your will can take an action based on faith and truth. And when you trust God’s Word, what does it do? It works effectually in you that believe; having truth be what programs your mind …

“When your mind is programmed by error, what happens is it produces some predictable emotional responses because error always does that. And those predictable emotional responses and desires that error produce result in erroneous behavior.

“Romans 7. We talk about addicts. They want that feeling so they depend on that pill (or whatever it is) to give it to them. The dependence on that pill is controlling them. You see, anything you depend on will control your life, so if you depend on truth, truth will control your life.

“When you sin, you’re going to respond to that sin in one of two ways. Your response to it is going to be based upon your flesh, you resources. And that’s what you find in Romans—a law response. The law is simply a performance-based acceptance mentality: ‘I’ll be accepted based on my performance.’

“The law, the standard you’re performing by, might be God’s law, might be your wife’s law, might be your law, might be your company’s . . . It’s just, ‘I can live up to whatever it is.’

“The other way to respond is to respond in your identity in Christ. Respond in your spirit and that would be responding on the basis of grace. Grace is all that God is free to do through the finished work of Jesus Christ. Grace is who I am in Christ, who He is and who God’s made me in Him.

“So when I sin I have a choice. I look at what’s happened and I say, ‘I can go to operation cover-up or I can go to operation, ‘Let’s fix this thing.’ Every time sin is in your life, that’s the choice."

Music MAKERS

Last week, Jordan brought up the subject of music, calling it “one of the dangers nobody seems to be alerting parents or Christian leaders about.”

He said, “It’s just fascinating to me how often and how thoroughly regular people miss the danger in music. They’ll protect their kids in every way except that and you need to be careful. A lot of times parents don’t protect their children because they themselves are not protected against it.”

*****

An old saying is, “When the devil fell out of heaven he landed in the choir loft.” We all know Lucifer was THE superstar musician.

On her Christian website Crossroad, Norwegian author Berit Kjos presents this excerpt from her book, “How to Protect Yourself from the New Age and Spiritual Deception”:

“Man's attempts to transcend the boundaries of the physical world through music are intricately interwoven with the history of mankind. While God encouraged His people to enter His presence through genuine worship and songs of praise, Satan offered seductive counterfeits.

“Thus, pagan societies used music as a conduit to help them connect directly with the occult spirit realm. Neville Drury, who promotes New Age meditation and visualization in his book, Music for Inner Space, points to ancient cultures as models for today:

" ‘In societies where magic and myth define and influence everyday existence man aspires to be like the gods and to imitate them.... [Magical] incantations and songs are a source of Power.’

“In primitive Africa and South America, witch doctors function as mediators between the tribe and demonic spirits. The sacred drum (credited with magical powers) together with hallucinatory drugs (sorcery) induces trances, which transports him into the spirit world where he receives occult guidance and power.

“Nanci des Gerlaise, author of Muddy Waters, is the daughter and granddaughter of Cree medicine men. Now, as a believer in Christ, Nanci warns others about the occult music in Native Spirituality:

" ‘Now when I hear powwow music, my spirit recoils, and I know that it is because there are spiritual forces of darkness at work. Some people, even some Christians, believe there are two different kinds of powwows -- one used only for entertaining tourists and the other for traditional competitions. Frankly, it makes no difference to the spirit world which version is used as long as there are drums and chanting.’ ”

*****

Music is an essential part of life, confirms Jordan. “Every piece of living creation has music to it; has a vibration—that’s what music is,” he says. “Music is really just math in regard to the tonal vibrations.

“When the Bible says back in Ezekiel 36 about the trees singing, well, they literally do. Music is so engrained in the creation that it’s everywhere.

“So when you see music, people call it ‘the universal language.’ You can affect people with music. One of the most dangerous things that happens with your children is the music they listen to, because it communicates ideas and you don’t even need to have words to go along with it.

“Listen, baroque music is considered to be the highest form of musical expression, but Mozart was an ungodly wreck. They’ve done experiments where if people have Mozart in the background, they actually do better in their learning curve. You think, ‘Oh, that must be godly music.’ You ought to go find out something about Mozart!

*****

“My point is, in I Chronicles 24, David organized the priests. Why didn’t he just let them do it any way they wanted to do it? Because God is ‘not the author of confusion.’ So in chapter 25, he’s going to organize the music ministry. He talks about the choir directors and the singers.

“When you hear about this guy, Asaph, understand this about him—he was not just a musical director.

“As I Chronicles 25:1 says, ‘Moreover David and the captains of the host separated to the service of the sons of Asaph, and of Heman, and of Jeduthun, who should prophesy with harps, with psalteries, and with cymbals: and the number of the workmen according to their service was:’

“Notice what they’re doing. They’re not just singing; they’re prophesying. In other words, God’s Word was being communicated in the psalms that they sang.

“This is a teaching prophesy, but I want you to notice what he does in Psalm 78. What he does, if you read down through that chapter, what’s literally here in Psalm 78, is a recap of the history of Israel from the Exodus all the way to through the reign of David.

“This tells you that from Exodus to II Samuel where David is, it’s used here as a prophetic parable to teach Israel about what’s going to happen to her in the ‘last days.’ That’s why Hosea says, ‘As in the days of your youth . . . ’

“Hosea 2:15 says, ‘And I will give her her vineyards from thence, and the valley of Achor for a door of hope: and she shall sing there, as in the days of her youth, and as in the day when she came up out of the land of Egypt.’

“Psalm 105 and 106 are others recounting the history of Israel. Those psalms are laying out a dress rehearsal for what’s going to happen in the ‘last days.’ ”

*****

In an old sermon on music, Jordan made the point, “Music is not an issue of sacred and secular. Lazy Christians have made secular and sacred out of life, but you don’t have a sacred life and a secular life; you only have a life in Christ, and in the Bible music is music. It’s not church music and ‘Saturday-night-boogie-oogie-woogie’ music.”

He quoted Job. 22: 15-17: “Hast thou marked the old way which wicked men have trodden?
[16] Which were cut down out of time, whose foundation was overflown with a flood:
[17] Which said unto God, Depart from us: and what can the Almighty do for them?”

Jordan explained, “They’re saying exactly what the people in Genesis 21 say, but the context is some people who were overthrown in the days of Noah in the Flood.

“What I’m trying to get you to see is God created music and from the creation to the Flood, music didn’t go up, it went down and it degenerated from the Creation morning until it debauched the world and filled it with violence. They weren’t praising God; they didn’t want to know Him and He wound up wiping them out. You have to be careful about music. Just because you like it don’t make it good for you.”

*****

From the Book of Daniel, we know Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar, a picture-type of the Antichrist, employed loud, beat-driven music to engender the mass idolatrous worship of his “beast” image by all the rulers of the nations—it’s judges, police, politicians, etc.

“It was a regular ‘rock festival,’ ” writes Noah Hutchings in his 1998 book, Daniel the Prophet. “Now, why would Nebuchadnezzar accompany this anti-God mass with loud music? Satan knows the power of music to stir the emotions of man and to deaden his natural senses.

 “Loud and discordant music brings out the worst beastlike qualities in man and drives him on to godless pursuits and inhuman behavior. It is no wonder that Nebuchadnezzar used loud and harsh music at his worship service that was base and godless. And this is why we question the wisdom of using modern rock music in the worship service today.”

 *****

 When Daniel’s three Hebrew compatriots held in Babylonian captivity—Shadrach, Meshach and Abed-nego—remained true to God and refused to worship Nebby’s image, they were by the king’s law to be cast into a fiery furnace.

 Hutchings writes, “The king was absolutely furious, but he doubtless liked his three Jewish governors, and he said to them, ‘I’ll tell you what I’m going to do. I’ll have the band play my song one more time, and if you fall down and worship the image, we will forget all about this first offense. But if you are still stubborn and refuse to worship the image, when the last note is played I will order the guards to overpower you and throw you into the furnace.’

 “We notice in these last verses which we read that the musical portion of this false and idolatrous worship service is stressed twice again. Music can be used to create any type of specific mental attitude that is desired . . ."