Never-ending pursuits in heaven

Paul assures in Philippians 3:20-21, "For our conversation is in heaven; from whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ: Who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body, according to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all things unto himself.”

Jordan reasons, “If you and I are going to be involved in subduing all things, in the ages to come we’re going to be busy at work developing the wisdom, knowledge and understanding that God has placed, not simply in creation, because we’re not the earthly people--we are blessed with 'all SPIRITUAL blessings in heavenly places.'

“You and I are going to be developing the spiritual . . .  Adam and Eve developed that physical thing in the earth.

“When God put Adam and Eve in the Garden, Genesis 1:28 says, ‘And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.’

“Now, you notice there’s a colon there. The way they were to have dominion is literally by subduing it, and as they began to discover what God put there, what were they discovering? His knowledge, wisdom and understanding.

“They took creation and made something more than what was there originally. What they do is push it forward; they develop it and that was God’s purpose. That issue of Adam subduing was not just going out and harnessing the resources; he was discovering the wisdom, understanding and knowledge God put there and developing that into new technologies that demonstrated the original plan of God.

*****

“Colossians 1:9 says, ‘For this cause we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you, and to desire that ye might be filled with the knowledge of his will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding.’

“Where is that wisdom and spiritual understanding he’s talking about going to come from? It comes from the will of God. ‘In whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge,’ says Colossians 2:3. You know what you do with a treasure? You have to go dig it out, you have to go find it, you have to go locate it.

“Ephesians 2:7 says, ‘That in the ages to come he might shew the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus.’

“He’s going to show it through us. These glorified bodies; we’re going to have that function in the heavens and what are we going to do in them? Be filled with the treasures that are in Christ.

*****

“If something is exceeding, what did it do? It surpassed what was there before. ‘I’ve got this; now I have something that’s more than that.’

“If in the ages to come, there’s going to be an age where the exceeding riches of His grace are manifest, and then the next age comes along, what’s going to be there? If it’s going to be exceeding riches, it’s going to have to be more than what was here before.

“Here’s an age, I got it, I’m getting all these fantastic things from Christ, and, ‘Woo-hoo! It couldn’t get any better than that!’ and yet the verse says, ‘Let’s see,’ and there starts another one and it gets better!

“Have you ever wondered if in eternity you’ll ever learn anything new? Will you ever grow anymore? You’re never going to come to the place where there aren’t exceedingly wonderful riches. You see, that’s what a treasure is!

“When people look for treasures, they look for it not to find their credit-card bill. They look for treasures to find riches. And you’re going to be discovering in the Lord Jesus Christ all of the riches of God’s grace.

*****

“You ever get a surprise package? They’re fun, aren’t they? You open it up and you know whatever’s on top, the things underneath are going to be even better. You and I are going to have an eternal surprise package for all eternity!

“It’s going to be a never-ending pursuit; a never-ending discovery of the riches that God’s grace has given to you in His Son. So for you and me, the goal, the Father’s goal, is to put on display the wisdom, knowledge, understanding—the treasure that He’s placed in His Son.

“God the Father treasures His Son above all things. He says ‘that in all things he might have the preeminence.’

“What do you treasure? You don’t have to wait ‘til heaven to value and treasure Him—that’s what His Word’s for! Because you have the wisdom, knowledge and understanding—Paul says be filled with it! You and I right now can begin to do what we’re going to spend eternity doing. That’s the great privilege of grace!

*****

When Paul went into Thessalonica’s synagogues where the lost Jews and God-fearing Gentiles were, he took the Word of God and proved to them out of the Scripture that Jesus was the Christ—that He was the one who fulfilled what their Scripture prophesied about.

“And then he obviously preached his gospel, but to make those two the same is to contradict what went on there,” says Jordan. “You have to understand that the Book of Acts isn’t designed to tell you everything that Paul did. It tells you some of it, you’re not going to discount it, but you have to understand the dispensational setting in it.

“The saints that were formed there, that little church started in Thessalonica; they became a wonderful group of people. Thessalonica was a city of about 200,000 people. It was not a hick town. It was a free city in the Roman Empire. It was a city of Greek culture, Macedonia and Achaia and the culture of Greece, but it was a free city in the Roman Empire. That is, it was a city that was autonomous under the Roman rule. They had special privileges and it was a major metropolitan area. Remember, Paul’s strategy over and over again was to target major metropolitan areas.

*****

“Romans 13:1 says, ‘Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God.’

“What Paul’s going to do in the first seven verses of this chapter is demonstrate and explain how a Believer in the dispensation of grace is to relate to the government in a godly way; with what he calls in I Timothy ‘godliness and honesty.’

“How are you to relate to the government of the nation where you live? You and I are Americans but whatever country you’re a part of, whatever nationality in the sense of your residence on Planet Earth is concerned, you are not a citizen really of that country.

“When you got saved, you became a member of the Church the Body of Christ. Your citizenship was changed from this world to the kingdom of God. That’s why He can say you’re ‘an ambassador for Christ.’ And ambassador is a representative of a foreign government or foreign head of state.

“In Colossians 1:13, Paul says, ‘Who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son.’

“In Paul’s mind, the members of the Body of Christ were a part of a different governmental system. We’re aliens down here. Our citizenship is in heaven. Eph. 2:19 says, ‘Now therefore ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellowcitizens with the saints, and of the household of God.’

*****

“The greatest passage in the Bible to explain and expound the gospel of the grace of God is Romans 3:21-28. That’s a passage without a peer in Scripture.”

'To hear as the learned'

I John 2:1 says, “My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.”

An advocate is someone who argues a person's case and intercedes for them, and it’s Jesus Christ the righteous. Similarly, Paul talks about Jesus Christ being a mediator in II Timothy 2:5: “For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.”

Jordan says, “On occasion that title ‘Jesus Christ’ is turned backward and it’s ‘Christ Jesus,’ and Paul changes the terminology from the normal. 'Jesus' is His human name. 'Christ' is His office as the Chosen One. That’s a deity name.

“When you say Jesus Christ, you emphasize His humanity; the man who’s God. In this verse, Paul says ‘the man, Christ Jesus.’ That subtlety puts the emphasis on His deity. That’s why I say, Paul’s not questioning His deity here. He’s emphasizing that the man is ‘the god-man.’ So it’s important to see the reality of His humanity.

*****

"The Lord Jesus Christ identified Himself as a man. He wasn’t denying His deity when He did that; He was making the point that He wasn’t a phantom, an illusion, an apparition. He was a real human.

"In John 8:40, when Jesus is talking to His enemies the Pharisees, He says, ‘But now ye seek to kill me, a man that hath told you the truth, which I have heard of God: this did not Abraham.’

“Notice He says, ‘I am a man who’s told you the truth that God the Father has taught me. I heard it from God the Father. Abraham didn’t do that.’

“What He’s doing there is demonstrating that He’s 'the man, Christ Jesus,' and He’s also demonstrating that He was TAUGHT by His Father the things that He’s saying.

*****

“That’s an interesting concept. In theology, they have all kind of words for those kind of things and all kind of ideas for it, but the point you need to see is that He is thoroughly and fully functioning humanity. He qualifies to be your full, total mediator.

John 2:22 says, When therefore he was risen from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this unto them; and they believed the scripture, and the word which Jesus had said.
[23] Now when he was in Jerusalem at the passover, in the feast day, many believed in his name, when they saw the miracles which he did.
[24] But Jesus did not commit himself unto them, because he knew all men,
[25] And needed not that any should testify of man: for he knew what was in man.

“Notice He’s the man who God the Father has empowered to do miracles, wonders, signs that God did by Him. He’s the agent of the Father accomplishing these.

"From Acts 17:31, we know the risen Lord Jesus Christ will be the one who judges all men and Paul calls him ‘that man.’ He wasn’t denying His deity; he was telling the unbelievers there that, ‘The one who’s going to judge you is going to be sitting right where you are, walking in your sandals; God raised Him up and He’s the one who will be your judge.’

*****

“People who want to defend the deity of Christ don’t like people to assert the humanity of Christ. But if you don’t have both in equal fashion, you don’t have a mediator.

“I’ve always defined the ‘kenosis doctrine’ as just the fact that the Lord Jesus Christ laid aside or surrendered the independent exercise of His deity attributes. He doesn’t give up His attributes; He can’t do that. You can’t not be who you are, but you can choose not to exercise some of your abilities.

“His personhood is important. He has two natures. That’s the reality of it. But when people make explanation of some of these verses they say, ‘Well, that was deity standing there being quiet,’ and then, ‘That’s His humanity talking and His deity being quiet,’ like it’s two different people and you have to stay away from that kind of thing.

“I don’t know of a better explanation for that then verses like Luke2:40: ‘And the child grew, and waxed strong in spirit, filled with wisdom: and the grace of God was upon him.’

“He’s 12 years old, His parents take Him up to the temple, and it says the child grew and waxed strong in spirit, filled with wisdom and the grace of God was with him.

“How’d He get filled with wisdom? By depending on God’s word. He’s being filled with some sound doctrine out of the Scripture. You notice in verse 49 he says to His parents Mary and Joseph, ‘How is it that ye sought me? wist ye not that I must be about my Father's business?’

“Notice the ‘F’ is capital in Father. He knows His identity. He’s 12 years old. His bar mitzvah was being taken place. He was moving into that Galatians 4 adult status. He understands who He is; He knows some things about Himself; he knows some things about the Father’s business and He’s being educated by His father--not just His earthly father, but His heavenly Father. And the man is LEARNING.

“In order to become a man He laid aside the independent personal use of His attributes and chose to depend and be obedient to the Father. He literally chose to trust the Father to take care of these things for Him.

“Verse 52 says, ‘And Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and man.’ Notice He increased in wisdom. Now how do you do that?

“John 8:28 says, ‘Then said Jesus unto them, When ye have lifted up the Son of man, then shall ye know that I am he, and that I do nothing of myself; but as my Father hath taught me, I speak these things.’

“You ought to write that in your mind. ‘I’m not acting independently on my own, but as my Father hath taught me, I speak these things.’ He grew in wisdom. Why? Because the Father was teaching Him.

******

“John 12:49 says, ‘For I have not spoken of myself; but the Father which sent me, he gave me a commandment, what I should say, and what I should speak.’

“I’m not going to run these verses into the ground, but you could literally go on and on about the fact the Lord Jesus Christ was literally instructed, taught by His Father as God would have a man to depend on. As Paul would talk about ‘the faith of Christ,’ that’s really what he’s talking about.

“He didn’t have to do that; He willingly chose to do that. He didn’t do it because He quit being God or because He was some ignoramus; He did it because that’s what was required for Him to be truly human and to be tempted in all points as you are.

******

“Isaiah 50:4 says, ‘The Lord GOD hath given me the tongue of the learned, that I should know how to speak a word in season to him that is weary: he wakeneth morning by morning, he wakeneth mine ear to hear as the learned.’

“This passage is a prophetic one talking about the Holy One, the Messiah. Look at verses 6-8. The one talking here prophetically is the Lord Jesus Christ. In other words, HHe learned obedience through the things He suffered (Hebrews 5). He grew. God the Father gave Him the tongue of the learned. He had some learning to do.

“He did that 'that I should know how to speak a word in season to him that is weary.' Because He has been wearied . . . God can’t be wearied. Isaiah 40 says God doesn’t get weary. Well, how can Jesus Christ be weary if God can’t be weary?

"Because He’s living dependent on the Father; He’s living in His humanity. He’s living as the man. He’s given up the exercise of His ability never to be weary. He willingly did it; nobody took it from Him--all so that He could live as you live so He could know how to speak a word in season to him that is weary.

“That’s like that thing in Hebrews 2:18: ‘For in that he himself hath suffered being tempted, he is able to succour them that are tempted.’

“Succour them. That means help you; come along and speak a word to you when you’re weary. He’s been where you are! There’s nothing you ever go through that He hasn’t been through. He understands the extremities of your humanity and that’s why God gave Him 'the tongue of the learned.'

“He literally lived in total dependence on the Father’s will so that He could demonstrate to you and me how God intended humanity to live, which is in total dependence on the Father’s will.

“ ‘He waketh me morning by morning to hear the word of the learned.’ In essence, He’s saying, ‘The Father woke me up every day and we had a little Bible study together.’ That’s a slang way of saying it, but that’s the point.

“Notice that thing about how ‘He awakeneth my ear’? That brings you over to Hebrews 10 and Psalm 40.

“Psalm 40:6: ‘Sacrifice and offering thou didst not desire; mine ears hast thou opened: burnt offering and sin offering hast thou not required.’

“Compare that verse to where it’s quoted in Hebrews 10, because Hebrews 10 takes those words out of the psalms and puts them into the mouth of the Lord Jesus Christ. He says that’s Christ talking.

Hebrews 10:5 says, ‘Wherefore when he cometh into the world, he saith, Sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not, but a body hast thou prepared me.’

“Jesus Christ demonstrated that real lasting life, that being fully human, can only come in obedience to the Father’s will. That’s why He’s ‘the man Christ Jesus.’

“Notice in verse 5 where back in psalm it said ‘mine ears hast thou opened’? Here he says ‘a body hast thou prepared for me.’ Now, one place He says ‘ears’ and the other place He says ‘body.’ When you see something like that in the New Testament that quotes the Old Testament, but then kind of adjusts it a little bit, you know the Spirit of God who inspired Hebrews is trying to alert you to something about the book that’s written about psalms back there.

“The ear issue is talking about the quality of the body that the Lord Jesus Christ receives. You know that thing in Exodus 21 about when the slave was able to go free but wanted to stay with his master, they put the awl in his ear and bored out a hole and he became what we call a bondservant?

“He was not serving his master because he was a slave and had to, but willingly; a love bond. And so most people take that and say that’s what He was talking about when He said ‘my ears hast thou opened’; that He’s opened a hole in His ear and made Him a bond slave. That’s real good because what does a slave do? He does the will of his master.

“But really there’s more to it than that ‘He opened my ear; He opened my understanding in order that I could live in dependence on the Father’s will.’

"Matt. 11:25 says, ‘At that time Jesus answered and said, I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes.’

“The Father’s making things known to the Son, and when He says He’s revealing things, how does God reveal things? He does it through His Word. So you have this situation where the Lord Jesus Christ as ‘the man Christ Jesus,’ He grows, He’s tempted, He suffers, He learns, He dies.

“How could God die? That’s one of the big conundrums. Well, God can’t die. So, He couldn’t be God? But ‘the man Christ Jesus,’ He took upon Him a capacity to do things as a human; to do things deity couldn’t do, and He did it so that He could speak a word of comfort to the weary.”

Exceeding intercession

Romans 8:26 says, “Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered.”

“The groanings that can’t be uttered, and I know sometime people get weird ideas about that, but you know there are some things that happen in your life that are just beyond your ability to put them into expression and words.

“Out of that basic deep fundamental level of need, God the Holy Spirit can take His truth and penetrate right there and bring help. Now, how the Holy Spirit helps is through His Word.

“There are those levels of need. The surface level, the physical, that which we see. That calls our attention to situations. Then there’s the faith level where we’re not looking at things that are seen but the things that are not seen ‘for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal.' So I’m not just looking at someone’s physical problems when I pray.

*****

“Ephesians 2:7 says, ‘That in the ages to come he might shew the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus.’
“Every age there’s going to be an exceeding manifestation of His grace and His kindness toward us. You’re never going to quit growing. Eternity is not going to become a static, boring thing. There’s going to be an ever-expanding, ever-expounding of the grace of God. Now if you groan in grace you understand that.

“For years I’ve told people how I’ll study and I’ll study and I’ll study and then I go away and come back and I look at the passage again and I say, ‘Who changed the words?! There’s more there than I saw before!’

“You say, ‘I didn’t see that before!’ Why? Because it was at a depth and level that I could comprehend over there but not over here yet. That’s what maturity is. You get older, you say, ‘Ah-ha, that’s what Brother Rick was talking about!’

“Maturity never quits growing. That’s one of the exciting things about being mature. Here’s Paul praying for mature saints. Phil 1:9 says, ‘And this I pray, that your love may abound yet more and more in knowledge and in all judgment.’ That’s why this prayer is such a fantastically important thing!

“The first thing you see there is the love there is a special kind of love. It’s not just huggy-huggy ‘l-u-v.’ It’s not, ‘There’s a sweet, sweet spirit in this place,’ and you feel like you’re at the Super Bowl or the local pub. That’s what evangelicalism is trying to reproduce for you in their meetings. That’s not what he’s talking about.

“He’s not talking about a warm, personal feeling. He says that this love here abounds in knowledge and judgment (discernment). This is a mental attitude kind of love. Really the word ‘love’ is the idea of you having the ability to value and esteem a thing the way God does.

“We’ve all experienced an increase in love for somebody where we learn something special the person has done for us. You’ve got a friend and they do something special for you and you have a greater appreciation for who they are.

“When Paul says, ‘I want your love to increase,’ your love increases and abounds more and more with God’s love for you. It results in judgment—the ability to discern and take that knowledge and correctly apply it to the details of life. That's what Philippians 1:10 is about: ‘That ye may approve things that are excellent; that ye may be sincere and without offence till the day of Christ.’

*****

Hebrews 5: 13-14 says, ‘For every one that useth milk is unskilful in the word of righteousness: for he is a babe. But strong meat belongeth to them that are of full age, even those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil.’

“'Exercised' there means the the ability to discern: ‘Here’s the truth; here’s what God says. I know how to handle God’s word to learn what God says and here’s how to apply it correctly to my life.’

“Paul said, ‘That’s what prayer is all about in your life.’ It’s not about trying to get God to stop sin and protect something. It’s about giving you the capacity to understand His Word and how it can be properly applied to the details of your life so you live in line with who you really are.

“Who do you take with you when you leave here? Not your outer man but your inner man. What you’ve learned and gained in skill and development in your inner man is who you take out there.”

Translating deity thinking

Hebrews 4:12 says, “For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.”

Jordan explains, “That word 'quick' means alive but it doesn’t mean just alive. It means ALIVE like, ‘Productive ALIVE!’ That’s why it’s translated ‘quick.’ The idea of it being quickness; it’s alive. Really the word means to ‘function in all the parts.’ Efficiently. You’re functioning, you’re in a state of activity, but it’s the idea of being able to respond without delay.

"Can I tell you that God’s Word doesn’t take forever to work in your life. You’ve got a problem and you bring the Word of God into that problem, you know what God’s Word says about that problem? It won’t take 6 weeks, 6 months, 2 years to fix the problem. If it takes that long it’s because you aren’t believing it.

“God’s Word will work quickly; it will function quickly! It’s alive! And it doesn’t hesitate to do its work. It doesn’t hesitate to energize you. It doesn’t hesitate to change your attitude about things. Or to change your actions. You know your actions come from the way you think.

“The Word of God works internally in you because it’s life. And let me say it again, it will work QUICKLY. It will give life without hesitation. It’s powerful. It’s a ‘discerner of the thoughts and intents of your heart.’ That’s a quality of God.

“It’s like the Book is. When you talk to that Book, you’re talking to God. Now the reason for that is is because it’s the Word of God. When you read that Book, it reads you. It’s a weird book in that sense.

“Because it’s a Book that literally reaches into your heart and evaluates what’s going on inside of you and He says it’s powerful. There’s a dynamic, living quality and ability to God’s Word.

*****

“Psalm 33 says, [1] Rejoice in the LORD, O ye righteous: for praise is comely for the upright.
[2] Praise the LORD with harp: sing unto him with the psaltery and an instrument of ten strings.
[3] Sing unto him a new song; play skilfully with a loud noise.
[4] For the word of the LORD is right; and all his works are done in truth.
[5] He loveth righteousness and judgment: the earth is full of the goodness of the LORD.
[6] By the word of the LORD were the heavens made; and all the host of them by the breath of his mouth.

“I love that ‘play skilfully.’ You know, a lot of folks play with loud noise but He says ‘play skillfully.’ That means be on pitch. Here’s what you’re to sing and praise and be excited about: ‘For the word of the Lord is right.’

“The first criteria of your Bible means to be right. God’s Word is associated with the breath of His mouth with His speaking. And all of the things you see out here were made when God SPOKE some words. You see that?

“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.’

“There’s Psalm 33:6! You weren’t there, you see. You have to take it by faith. By faith we understand. By the way, He doesn’t even say we know. He says we understand. You understand some things.

*****

“They had this debate the other week between Ham and Nye. You can look at the facts; the bare biology, geology, anthropology. That kind of stuff, you can look at the facts, but by faith you get understanding.

“You find out what’s behind all of this. There’s a wisdom, a knowledge, an understanding by God by which He created those things that you can only know by faith in what He tells you.

“ 'So the things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.’ So the physical reality of the universe was made that it was not made out of things that appear! Well, if it’s not made out of something that appears—if it doesn’t appear, what is it?! if it’s not visible, it’s invisible. Wow, that’s smart!

“God used some resources within Himself to create a physical universe. The physical universe was a manifestation of a spiritual reality that resided in God.

“Have you wondered why in the beginning, God created two realms--visible and invisible? Colossians 1:16 says, ‘For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him.’

*****

“Have you ever wondered why He says in Genesis 1:1, ‘In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.’ Why'd He do it that way? Why didn’t He just say, ‘In the beginning God created the universe,’ because that’s what He did. Isn’t the earth part of the heaven?

“Why would Paul say ‘visible and invisible’? He’s communicating something to you about what you’re reading here. When you understand what He was doing, what you understand is that the physical were made by things that are not seen. He took something out of the spiritual reality in Himself and created the visible.

“So the physical is going to really be a manifestation of a spiritual life. So, in your Christian life, when we talk about the outward being an expression of the inward, what are we really talking about? Exactly that! That’s how God works in His creation.

*****

“II Timothy 3:16 says, ‘All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness.’

“You see that word ‘script’? He’s talking about all the stuff written down. Scripted. It’s given by inspiration of God. You see that word inspiration? God literally took His Spirit and put it into some words and somebody wrote them down. He breathed out some words. He said some things.

“And all Scripture, all the stuff that’s written down here, is given by God, putting His Spirit in some words that somebody then wrote down.

“Inspiration has to do with God putting His Spirit into words that are then written down. What’s written down is given to you by God putting His Spirit into some words. That’s what inspiration is. It’s God giving some words that are then written down.

*****

“Job 32:8 says, ‘But there is a spirit in man: and the inspiration of the Almighty giveth them understanding.’

“I read that just so you can see again that issue about inspiration has to do with there’s a spirit in man and the inspiration gives understanding. There’s a connection between the spirit and inspiration.

“Listen, there’s a spirit in man. Genesis 2:7 says, ‘And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.’

“How do you make man? You form man out of the dust of the earth and He breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and man became a living soul.

“God inbreathed a spirit, the breath of God, and that breath of God has to do with what God’s doing when He writes His Word. Jesus said, ‘Man should not live by breath alone but by every word that proceeds out of the MOUTH of God.’

*****

“II Peter 1:20-21 says, Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation.
[21] For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.

“Notice we are talking here about the Scripture. So, here’s how the Bible comes into existence. God speaks. He breathes out some words. Those words are then put into written form in a book. They’re written down in the Book of God. So what’s written down? The words that came out of the mouth of God.

“It starts out with a spiritual reality. This form that you hold in your hands, you’re talking about how God reveals Himself.

*****

“You ever heard anybody talk about how you can’t have a divine translation? You know how dumb that is?! What do you think it took for God Almighty (God the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost)?!

“They’re talking among themselves before they ever thought about creating you. And they’re just talking among themselves. What language do you think they talked in?

“How would you take deity thinking and translate it into a finite language that a human could understand? There’s the real translation problem. Translating it from Greek to English, or from Greek to Swahili, that’s a cinch compared to taking deity words and putting it into human words.

“If God could do that, you don’t worry about translating between your languages. That ain’t no big deal! He could take His thinking and put it into human language and do it in such a way as to say, ‘That’s my Word.’

“I got over worrying about translating years ago when I realized that. God reveals Himself. God speaks His revelation to us. Then He has it inscribed in a book. Then He preserves that book through history. What’s He preserving? The spiritual reality that He spoke preserves it and it now resides in written form!”

' . . . And rest on the blissful shore'

There’s a very famous incident of Jesus Christ with His disciples that illustrates that the point Paul makes in I Thessalonians 2:13 works the same no matter what the message.

He writes, “For this cause also thank we God without ceasing, because, when ye received the word of God which ye heard of us, ye received it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God, which effectually worketh also in you that believe.”

The account in Mark 4 reads, [35] And the same day, when the even was come, he saith unto them, Let us pass over unto the other side.
[36] And when they had sent away the multitude, they took him even as he was in the ship. And there were also with him other little ships.
[37] And there arose a great storm of wind, and the waves beat into the ship, so that it was now full.
[38] And he was in the hinder part of the ship, asleep on a pillow: and they awake him, and say unto him, Master, carest thou not that we perish?
[39] And he arose, and rebuked the wind, and said unto the sea, Peace, be still. And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm.
[40] And he said unto them, Why are ye so fearful? how is it that ye have no faith?
[41] And they feared exceedingly, and said one to another, What manner of man is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?

Jordan says, “You ever hear that song, ‘Master, the tempest is raging! The billows are tossing high! The sky is o'ershadowed with blackness. No shelter or help is nigh.’

“They’re crying, ‘We’re dying, Lord, and you’re asleep! How can you sleep?! Carest thou not that we perish?!’

“What a stupid question but they’re all caught up in their circumstances. And He arose and did what only God can do. He rebuked the wind and said unto the sea, ‘Peace.’ Only God can do that! Once again He demonstrates Himself to be the Messiah. Psalm 89 said that’s exactly what Israel’s Messiah would do:

[8] O LORD God of hosts, who is a strong LORD like unto thee? or to thy faithfulness round about thee?
[9] Thou rulest the raging of the sea: when the waves thereof arise, thou stillest them.

*****

“You ever been that way in your life? The winds and the waves are beating; life’s coming over the transom and all of a sudden your ship is full of all kind of garbage?

“I don’t know if you’ve ever been in a storm in a boat where the stuff’s coming over, but it isn’t just water; it’s all the sludge from the sea that comes up. There’s these guys with the seaweed and the bushes hanging all over them and they’re looking at Jesus and He’s asleep. Look at what He says to them in verse 40: ‘Why are ye so fearful? how is it that ye have no faith?’

“I read that and I say, wait a minute, what in the world is He talking about? Well, ‘faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God.’ So look back up through that passage and tell me, ‘What did He say to them that they aren’t believing?’

“Look back at verse 35: What do you think they’re going to do? You know why He’s asleep? They aren’t on the other side yet! You say, ‘They didn’t believe what He said to them.’

“My point to you is, God’s Word doesn’t calm the storms until you believe it! The power that’s in that Book stays in that Book until you believe it.

“And you can be just like the storm-tossed, frightened, confused, bewildered, upset, accusing . . .  Imagine saying to the Lord Jesus Christ, ‘Carest not that we perish?’ What an accusation! He says, ‘Peace, be still.’ He does what He says He’s going to do. The Word of God is where the power of God resides.”

(Editor’s note: working on a new article to post later today)

Breathing exercises

“Nobody ever pays any attention to this when it comes to studying it, but one of the greatest chapters in the Bible about the process of inspiration is in Jeremiah 36," says Jordan. "Jerry is having a problem. He’s not getting very good reception.

“Verse 2 says, ‘Take thee a roll of a book, and write therein all the words that I have spoken unto thee against Israel, and against Judah, and against all the nations, from the day I spake unto thee, from the days of Josiah, even unto this day.’

“God’s saying, ‘Go get you a book, roll it out, and write down all the words.’ That term ‘word’ occurs 17 times in this chapter. What he’s writing down here is not just a bunch of thoughts; it’s some words. Where did Jerry get the words from? God spoke them to him. What’s inspiration? How’d the Scripture come? Given by God speaking some w-o-r-d-s. So Jeremiah starts writing them down.

“Verse 4 says, ‘Then Jeremiah called Baruch the son of Neriah: and Baruch wrote from the mouth of Jeremiah all the words of the LORD, which he had spoken unto him, upon a roll of a book.’

“Notice the Words of God came from the mouth of Jeremiah and Baruch writes them down. Did you know Jeremiah didn’t write the book that’s got his name on it? Who wrote the book? Baruch was the scribe.

“Did you ever read in Romans 16:22 where he says Tertius wrote this book? It says, ‘I Tertius, who wrote this epistle, salute you in the Lord.’ You say, ‘I thought Paul wrote it?’ Well, God through Jeremiah spoke the words; it’s given by inspiration and then it’s written down by Baruch.

“The words are the issue; not the process. The words put on the page are the issue. How they got there is inspiration. God spoke them and they wrote them down. Now they are recorded. Theologians get so bound up with how did the words get there and was it mechanical. They got there pretty simple.

“Read Jeremiah 36. God spoke them, the dude wrote them down. Inspiration has to do with God’s breath. He speaks and then they’re written down; they’re given by inspiration. Go to verse 11: ‘When Michaiah the son of Gemariah, the son of Shaphan, had heard out of the book all the words of the LORD.’  

They got a book and it’s got all the words of the Lord in it. The issue now is going to be the book because the book is going to preserve the words that they can take around.

“You see the king down in this chapter cutting the pages out with a pen knife and throwing them in the fire because the issue is the words on the page. What’s in the words on the page? The breath of God. Can you get the idea why the word of God is powerful? Why it can work in you is because it’s literally the breath of God and it’s the physical, tangible form in which you get that spiritual reality that is God’s Word.

“That’s why Jesus said in John 6:63, ‘The words I speak unto you are spirit and life.’

“Verse 18 says, ‘Then Baruch answered them, He pronounced all these words unto me with his mouth, and I wrote them with ink in the book.’

“Any questions?! That’s pretty easy! One of the most fascinating things is what happens next. The king takes the thing, cuts it with a penknife, and ‘cast it into the fire that was on the hearth, until all the roll was consumed in the fire that was on the hearth.’ He’s saying, ‘Look, here’s what you do with God’s Word; I don’t believe it,’ and burns it up.

“That guy had an original manuscript! Just like Moses did when he came down off the mountain. Mo had one that was written with the very FINGER of Almighty God! You know what he did with it? He broke them. You know what God did? He re-wrote them.

“Verse 32 says, ‘Then took Jeremiah another roll, and gave it to Baruch the scribe, the son of Neriah; who wrote therein from the mouth of Jeremiah all the words of the book which Jehoiakim king of Judah had burned in the fire: and there were added besides unto them many like words.’

“He didn’t just reproduce it; he put more in it than was in the original! Did you ever hear anybody complain, ‘Well, when you read a quote in the New Testament it’s never like a quote in the Old Testament. It’s always got different things in it; can’t be the Word of God. Now which one’s right?

“I read in Acts 15 when he quotes Amos 9 but what it says in Acts 15 isn’t back there in Amos 9. The passage says, [14] Simeon hath declared how God at the first did visit the Gentiles, to take out of them a people for his name.
[15] And to this agree the words of the prophets; as it is written.’

“So which one is God’s Word? Both. You know why? They’re both given by inspiration. Which one of those rolls that Baruch wrote out were the Word of God? Both. Were they exactly the same? No. God’s Word was still growing at that time.

“You can learn a lot about theological arguments by reading your Bible. Weird stuff in this Book. My point to you is the Word of God is where the power of God is.

*****

“Go to Matthew 22:31. I’ve told people for years this is the verse that kept me from becoming a neo-orthodox; a modernist. The verse says, ‘But as touching the resurrection of the dead, have ye not read that which was spoken unto you by God . . .’

“That means that what they were reading was the inspired Word; it was the Word of God given by inspiration, spoken by God. It also means it was the preserved inspired Word of God because they didn’t have original manuscripts. All this original manuscript stuff . . .  listen, in the bible original manuscripts didn’t have the kind of status they have in evangelical theology.

“You don’t find God’s Word by trying to find the original manuscripts. These guys had God’s Word preserved and you know what? The words they were reading weren’t exactly like the ones Moses wrote because there had been 1,500 years of language development. You ever thought about that?

“And yet Jesus said, ‘What you’re reading is what God said.’ And if God had lived in the 1^st Century where Jesus was, that’s the way He would have said exactly what He said to Moses back there. That’s some book you got there, folks.

“I Thessalonians 2:13 says, ‘For this cause also thank we God without ceasing, because, when ye received the word of God which ye heard of us, ye received it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God, which effectually worketh also in you that believe.’

“So when you believe over here, God’s Word goes into you and begins to work IN YOU. But when we say God’s Word is in you, we don’t mean that you eat that paper and ink right there.

“We mean His breath that He put in this, you take that breath out of here and He puts in you! It requires the conscious positive choice of faith, but that conscious positive choice of faith can become far more natural than you let it become. It doesn’t have to be the kind of thing where you go walk into the wall and get a bloody nose. You can mind the things of the Spirit.”

Reckoning the reality

Romans 6:17 says, “But God be thanked, that ye were the servants of sin, but ye have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered you.”

“Can the heart obey?” asks Alex Kurz. “Doesn’t that express one’s capacity to exercise free will? What did Proverbs say? ‘As a man thinks in his heart.’ The way we think about things, the way we’re processing, tabulating the information, the way we’re organizing it, prioritizing it—that’s what a software program does.

“Whatever program you have, it takes the data and it processes it and organizes it and prioritizes it. When God says we’re ‘alive from the dead,’ we now have to make a willful, conscious choice to believe what God believes about us.

“Romans 10:9 says, ‘That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.’

“Can the heart respond ‘yes’ or ‘no’? Yep, I can believe or not. Verse 10 says, ‘For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.’

“Wait a minute, if we have regenerated life, we can listen to Him. I can hear Him. He’s teaching me. How am I going to choose to think about the material? Are we going to listen to it? Obey it? If God says that old guy’s dead; are we going to believe it?

“Look at what Paul says in Romans 9:2: ‘That I have great heaviness and continual sorrow in my heart.’. What’s sorrow? It’s an emotion. The heart has feelings! When Christ gives us life, look at what God ultimately says we’re supposed to do.

“Romans 6:11 says, ‘Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord.’

“What is the key? Are we reckoning the reality of our identity in Jesus Christ to be literally so? We’ve got to be renewed in the realm of the inner man day by day. Because the old man--God says, 'I cut him off!' and yet we're allowing the voice from the past to exercise dominion.

*****

“I always enjoy word origins so out of curiosity I looked up the word ‘reckon.’ It’s an accounting term. The concept of reckoning comes from an Anglo-Saxon word that has to do with a garden rake! What does a garden rake do? Don’t you bring together and heap together?

“God’s saying, ‘Listen, I’m providing you all of the information, the details, the data.’ We’re supposed to now take that information and were now bringing it together into the realm of our thought processes, kind of like an algebraic or calculus equation.

“God says, ‘Here’s the data. Here’s the truth. Here’s the reality!’ We have to bring it together into the realm of our thinking. Are we going to yield to the NEW voice?

“If the Lord Jesus is teaching us something and we’re supposed to be hearing Him, where do we go? You see why studying the Scriptures is just bedrock?! Your Christian life will never be powerful and effective, and you’re not going to be more than conquerors, if you’re operating based upon what you see, hear and intuitively believe in your own heart. We’ve got to go to the outside authority called God’s Word and all of that doctrine—let’s rake it in!”

*****

Romans 12:2 says, “And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.”

Jordan explains, “That’s saying, ‘I’m not going to let the world decide how I’m going to live.' All the things of the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, the pride of life. That’s what got Adam and Eve, those are the avenues the devil tried to tempt Jesus with . . .

“The lust of the flesh is the issue of pleasure. ‘I want to have my desires, to feel; I want to be happy. I want to gratify my desires. I want to be pleased.’

“The lust of the eyes. That’s, ‘I want to have things.’ It’s the issue of security, control.

“The pride of life is that super-charged passion to BE somebody; for significance, for status, for superiority. All those things that drive us, they are the things that carry on the course of the world. Paul said, ‘I’m not going to let those things decide for me! That isn’t how my value system’s going to work! Because of who I am in Christ, I’m not going to live like I’m not that!’

“ ‘The transforming of your mind.’ You see, it’s really a battle for your mind. And if you’re going to be surrendered to God, then the next thing is you’re going to be separated from the values of the world and separated unto the way God looks at things. And I’m going to let His thinking become my thinking."

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Genesis 2:16 says, “And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat.”

Jordan explains, “Notice we always focus on the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, but look at what God said first. He said, ‘Of every tree in that garden go eat it. Go consume it, man. Suck it up, enjoy it; go discover what’s in it. Go harness it. There’s one thing you can’t eat. The decision to do what’s right and wrong isn’t yours to do. That’s my privilege.’ ”

The passage goes on, “And the LORD God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him.
[19] And out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof.
[20] And Adam gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field; but for Adam there was not found an help meet for him.”

“People get confused about that and say, ‘I thought He created those things on the fifth day but now He is on the sixth day recreating them,’ says Jordan.

“On the sixth day, after He made man, He takes man out here and says, ‘C’mon, Adam. I want to teach you something,’ and He literally forms the animals out of the dirt while Adam is watching Him so that Adam knows where that creation came from.

“Adam shows up and there’s a tiger and an elephant. There’s a mosquito. There’s creation. Adam doesn’t know where they came from. He just showed up! He doesn’t even know where he came from! God creates these animals and the fowls, the birds, so Adam can see where they came from. God is educating Adam about creation.

“Here Adam is, when he was created, he’s 33-years-old looking. I mean, he’s a day old and he looks 33. Whew. People say, ‘You look a lot older than your age.’ Adam’s a blank! He doesn’t know what’s going on and God’s educating him.

“God walks in the cool of the day with Adam every day, teaching him. And He puts the animals there and He watches Adam to see if Adam’s caught onto what his job is.

“Now, if you didn’t have any other job assignment than to go subdue the earth at the moment . . . You can’t be fruitful and multiply, it takes time, but you can start subduing. If he understood what that meant, and the Lord says, ‘Looky here what I did!’, what would Adam do?! Well, he’d start trying to subdue it and that means naming them.

“He examines them, identifies the wisdom and understanding--what were they created for, what was their function--and gives names to them and names define a person. He’s extracting out of the creation purpose and identifying them.

“Out of the ground God formed every beast. Underline that. Why’d he bring them to Adam? Not to name them but to see WHAT Adam would name them. He didn’t need Adam to name the animals. He brought them to Adam to see if Adam was catching on to what’s going on. He put them in front of Adam to SEE what Adam would name them.

“By the way, intellectual pursuit was given. He didn’t say, ‘Let the animals name themselves.’ Fido ain’t a human. He gave to MAN the responsibility that supersedes the capacity of the animals. An intellectual and perceptual discipline and function was given to man. He gave man the responsibility to look at creation and figure out what it was about.

“So what’s God looking for in creation? He’s looking to extract the wisdom and understanding and knowledge that God has put in the creation. Why did He do that for and what’s there? That was having dominion. Dominion in the earth, ruling in the earth and in the heavens, is not simply telling people what to do. We think about, ‘I’m going to reign. I’m going to tell you what to do.’

*****

Exodus 31 starts out, 1] And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying,
[2] See, I have called by name Bezaleel the son of Uri, the son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah:
[3] And I have filled him with the spirit of God, in wisdom, and in understanding, and in knowledge, and in all manner of workmanship,
[4] To devise cunning works, to work in gold, and in silver, and in brass,
[5] And in cutting of stones, to set them, and in carving of timber, to work in all manner of workmanship.

“Workmanship is an activity that the wisdom, understanding and knowledge allows you to accomplish,” says Jordan. “Notice this guy has been given wisdom, understanding and knowledge to be able to work in such a way as to devise cunning works. He literally had the capacity to take gold and silver material and extract out of them purposes.

“You know, when it talks about they became workers of brass, brass is an alloy. You take copper and tin, copper and zinc; one makes brass and the other makes bronze. You have to figure out there’s copper and there’s tin.

“Somebody had to sit down and figure out to smelt them together to become a heat catalyst to form something new that was better than either one by themselves. That’s devising cunning works.

“You look at creation, you saw how God put that thing together so that it could be worked to accomplish a purpose that hadn’t been faced before. If you’re fruitful and you multiply and replenish the earth, you’re going to face some problems nobody had to face.

"You say, ‘Where’s the owner’s manual for this problem?’ You go back there and it’s not in the index. ‘What am I going to do?’ He says, ‘I’ve given you wisdom, understanding and knowledge to figure out how to do my will in there because that information’s available.’

*****

“Colossians 1:9 says, ‘For this cause we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you, and to desire that ye might be filled with the knowledge of his will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding.’

 “You know what God’s purpose with the Body of Christ is? It’s that man is going to take wisdom, understanding and knowledge out of His creation and harness it and subdue it and develop it so that it manifests the wisdom God put in His creation. You and I are going to do the same thing up there.

“You know what our reigning in the heavens is going to be? It’s not going to be telling those angels to go do that and those angels go do that: ‘You do this because I said so.’

“In Mark 10, Jesus says when two of His disciples come and say, ‘We want to sit on each side of you in the kingdom,’ He said, ‘You guys don’t understand; you’re thinking like a bunch of elitist Gentiles. You think government is just telling people what to do. Government is to administer my heaven. It’s to administer my business. It’s to take the wisdom, understanding and knowledge that I have and go out there and figure out how to apply it to ever-increasingly new situation so you don’t need to run to the index every time; you’ve got some discernment to be able to deal with it based upon your understanding my will and hence you can manifest my thinking, my mind, my life.’

“Whoa! You understand now why wisdom, understanding and knowledge is really the gut issue? I’m thinking of 30 verses but I’m not gonna do it. Ephesians 2:7 says, ‘That in the ages to come he might shew the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus.’ ”

Hath it not been told you from the beginning?

Even the most liberal of my journalism professors at Ohio State would be absolutely appalled to see how disgracefully unethical and biased the so-called “Gray Lady,” with the motto "All the News That's Fit to Print," has become.

In the Science section of yesterday’s New York Times was a straight news piece (without any type of opinion or “according to” disclaimer), under the headline, “Camels Had No Business in Genesis.”

It began by informing “camels probably had little or no role in the lives of such early Jewish patriarchs as Abraham, Jacob and Joseph,” and that “these anachronisms are telling evidence that the Bible was written or edited long after the events it narrates and is not always reliable as verifiable history.”

The article continued, “These camel stories ‘do not encapsulate memories from the second millennium,’ said Noam Mizrahi, an Israeli biblical scholar, ‘but should be viewed as back-projections from a much later period.’

“Dr. Mizrahi likened the practice to a historical account of medieval events that veers off to a description of ‘how people in the Middle Ages used semitrailers in order to transport goods from one European kingdom to another.’ ”

It’s not until the fifth paragraph that you learn this flat-out “statement of fact” is based simply on the findings of two archaeologists at Tel Aviv University who dug up some camel bones at an ancient copper smelting camp in Israel and “used radiocarbon dating to pinpoint the earliest known domesticated camels in Israel to the last third of the 10th century B.C. — centuries after the patriarchs lived and decades after the kingdom of David, according to the Bible.”

******

When God created everything in the six days of creation, He didn't just go, "Pfwhoof, let's see what happens."

David writes in Psalm 8, "When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained. . ."

When you ordain something, you order it and set it up in a very specific way. That's why when people ask, "Why am I here?" the answer is, "God ordained some things that you're a part of."

The answer isn't that we jumped out of some primordial soup onto the land, shed our tadpole tails and grew legs, all because we just happened to happen.

"When you do something with your fingers, you're doing it with a great deal of skill and carefulness—with purpose," explains Jordan. "The finger of God is a reference to the Holy Spirit. In Deuteronomy, when God wrote the tables of stone and gave them to Moses, it says He wrote with His finger. In Luke 11, when the Lord Jesus Christ refers back to the finger of God, He calls Him the ‘Holy Spirit.’ "

In talking about the greatness of the Messiah, Isaiah says, "Who hath measured the waters in the hollow of His hand, and meted out heaven with the span, and comprehended the dust of the earth in a measure, and weighed the mountains in scales, and the hills in a balance? Who hath directed the Spirit of the LORD, or being his counseller hath taught him?" (Isa. 40:12-13)

As Jordan explains, it's like God figured to Himself, "You know that lake over there—I want it to have so many gallons of water."

"It's like He goes over and dips out so much dirt—gets it out of the way so it will hold so much water—and then He fills it up. Now you know He didn't literally do it that way, but the point is He had a plan. He knew just how big He wanted the Pacific Ocean to be, just how big He wanted the Indian Ocean, the Adriatic. He had a plan minutely designed."

The word "span" in the passage refers to a way of measuring, akin to a measuring stick.

"God measured the distance between the earth and the sun and made it exactly the 93 million miles that it is," says Jordan. "You ever think about the fact that the universe is put together with that kind of care? Ordinances. That's why everything works the way it does."

Isaiah asks pretty much the same question of Israel when he writes in Isaiah 40:21-22, "Have ye not known? have ye not heard? hath it not been told you from the beginning? have ye not understood from the foundations of the earth?
"It is he that sitteth upon the circle of the earth, and the inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers; that stretcheth out the heavens as a curtain, and spreadeth them out as a tent to dwell in."

"If God sits on 'the circle of the earth,' what shape do you think the earth is?" asks Jordan. "Nobody who was ever a Bible-believer thought the earth was flat. You know who thought the earth was flat? Scientists. The people who were stating the science of their day."

From the same verse, we know God actually created the universe as tent for Him to dwell in.

"He was creating a house in which He intended to live," confirms Jordan. "He created it in a way that honored, pleased and satisfied Him. He set it up the way He wanted it set up."

*****

Most people aren't aware of the fact that the Book of Job has much more information about creation than Genesis. Also, Job was the first book written in the Bible.

When the nation of Israel came out of Egypt with Moses and went across the Red Sea, they carried the Book of Job among their belongings. It was after that that Moses wrote the Book of Genesis.

This is precisely why Isaiah pleads in rhetorical fashion, "Have ye not known? have ye not heard? hath it not been told you from the beginning?"

"When you read Genesis 1 and 2, you need to remember that the people Moses wrote that for already had the information," says Jordan. “When God gave birth to the nation Israel, He educated them as to why He was creating them. It wasn't just to set them free from Egyptian bondage. He was creating a nation in the earth in which He would accomplish His purpose in man.”

The Apostle Paul tells us in Romans 5:14 that Adam "is the figure of him that was to come." The very reason Jesus Christ had to become a man is because—as the one who represents all those who are in Him—He'll be the one to accomplish God's purpose for man.

*****

Here’s a piece I wrote in 2005:

Several times now in Manhattan I've inadvertently flustered someone "in the know" by informing them that the great Greek sages—Plato, Homer, Aristotle, Socrates, etc.—were actually plagiarists who grew up with the Old Testament and stole from it.

I found out this eye-opener myself several years ago from a Bible study given by my pastor.

"You know what Plato had in front of him before anyone ever burped him or weaned him off the pabulum?" says my pastor, Richard Jordan of Shorewood Bible Church in Chicago (graceimpact.org), in a study I have on tape. "He had a Bible in front of him. The fellow got his philosophy out of the Old Testament. The wisdom literature—Job, Psalms, Proverbs and Ecclesiastes—is the source for all those big shot philosophers. Aristotle's Golden Mean is found in Ecclesiastes 7… Every philosophy known to man has been plagiarized out of the Book of Ecclesiastes…written by Solomon literally 500 to 600 years before these guys ever showed up."

At the same time these sagacious wonders made a living and name for themselves cheating off God's Word, though, they spouted absurd hokum as if they grew up reading nothing but Dr. Seuss.

Concerning the earth, for example, as Jordan explains, "these presumed masterminds came up with such bizarre, hare-brained ideas as to be found laughable by any civilized intelligent standard.

"If the Bible were to assert that the earth was carried on the shoulders of the god Atlas, who stood on the backs of giant tortoises, which stood on the backs of elephants, this would be more than sufficient reason to discredit the Holy Scriptures as being of God. And still the Greek scholars are revered today by those who refuse to recognize the wisdom of God and His Holy Book."

In contrast, Job, the oldest book in the Bible, explains that God spread the skies over empty space and "hangeth the earth upon nothing." (Job 26.7)

Isaiah, a book dating, in part, as far back as 698 B.C., confirms that the Lord sits enthroned above the "circle of the earth." (Isaiah 40:22)

Up until the 15^th century, without the benefit of a telescope or a knowledge of the physics of astronomy, no one knew nor would many people believe the earth was not flat.

"Noted Bible teacher, J. Vernon McGee, has stated that the word 'circle' is synonymous with 'globe,' a round geometric figure," says Jordan. "The Bible is not a book of science and yet not even in one point does it contradict any principle of modern science that has been established as fact rather than mere theory."

 

*****

About a year ago I had a conversation with a New York City fireman (on sick leave due to a lung condition from being on the scene at the World Trade Center on 9/11 and then helping with the clean-up) who was adamant there could never have been a flood covering the earth because there's simply not enough water for such a thing to happen. He used this as one argument why the Bible could not be true.

Of course, the Flood is another long-time puzzler solved in the pages of the Old Testament. Moses perfectly explains in Gen. 7:11 that fountains, or springs, of the "great deep" burst forth at the same time rains fell from heaven, creating the flood Noah built his ark to escape.

It has only been in recent years that scientists have discovered that there are indeed great water fountains erupting from the ocean floor.

 

******

A pocket-sized paperback I picked up last year at the Christian bookstore on 43^rd and 8^th Avenue, called "Hidden Wealth; Scientific Facts in the Bible," explains that even the man considered to be the "father" of oceanography, Matthew Maury (1806-1873), used the Bible—in this case Psalms 8:8 and its reference to "paths of the sea"—as his jumping off point to his eventual discovery of warm and cold continental currents. Maury's book on oceanography remains a basic university text today.

Detailed in the paperback, written by Ray Comfort, are many other examples—in areas of medicine, biology, astronomy, archaeology, etc.—where the Bible pre-dates by thousands of years scientific findings and thereby proves its supernatural origins.

Take, for example, radio waves and wireless communication:

"God asked Job a very strange question in 1500 B.C.; He asked, 'Can you send lightnings, that they may go and say to you, 'Here we are?' (Job 38:35)," writes Comfort. "This appears to be a scientifically ludicrous statement—that light can be sent, and then manifest itself in speech. But did you know that all electromagnetic radiation—from radio waves to x-rays—travels at the speed of light? This is why you can have instantaneous wireless communication with someone on the other side of the earth. The fact that light could be sent and then manifest itself in speech wasn't discovered by science until 1864 (3,300 years later), when 'British scientist James Clerk Maxwell suggested that electricity and light waves were two forms of the same thing.' "

When it comes to increasing entropy and the Second Law of Thermodynamics, as another example, Comfort explains the Bible nailed this eons ago in three different places (Isaiah 51:6, Psalm 102:25, 26; and Hebrews 1:11). Both Isaiah 51 and Hebrews talk about how the earth "shall wax old as doth a garment."

In the field of medicine, notes Comfort, the Bible's ancient commands vastly pre-date medical breakthroughs regarding laws of hygiene, laws of quarantine, food-borne bacteria, the immune system, saturated fat intake and the correlation between mental and physical health.

As one example Comfort gives, epidemics such as the ravaging Black Death of the 14^th century, while attributed at the time to "bad air" or "evil spirits," could have been avoided by minding God's decree on leprosy to the children of Israel in Leviticus 13:46: "All the days wherein the plague shall be in him he shall be defiled; he is unclean: he shall dwell alone; without the camp shall his habitation be."

Leviticus and blood biology meet in verse 17:11: "For the life of the flesh is in the blood."

"In 1616, William Harvey discovered that blood circulation is the key factor in physical life—confirming what the Bible revealed 3,000 years earlier," writes Comfort. "Blood is far more complex and has far more to do with life than science ever imagined…The blood carries water and nourishment to every cell, maintains the body's temperature, and removes the waste material of the body's cells. It also carries oxygen from the lungs throughout the body...The great biological truth concerning the importance of blood in our body's mechanism has been fully comprehended only in recent years. Up until 120 years ago, sick people were 'bled,' and many died because of the practice. If you lose your blood, you lose your life."

(Editor’s note: new article tomorrow)