Obama insists, 'Call them ISIL!'

Driving from Akron to Dayton yesterday, my mom and I listened to a variety of conservative radio talk show hosts. What kills me is how often some of them repeat, “I don’t get it; I just don’t get it!” when expressing incredulity over the latest liberal ideology our president, elected officials, fellow Americans, etc., support.

One recent example is the Obama Administration’s rejection of any legislation implementing tighter security in “vetting” Muslim refugees coming into the U.S.

The thing these national personalities, etc., never seem to address is the real war; the war behind the scenes that even Israel, as it struggles for its existence in the Middle East today, fails to acknowledge it’s fighting.

Obama continues to give a wink and a nod to the Islamic State with his insistence on calling them the honorable name of “ISIL.” The letter “L” stands for the historic pro-Palestinian term “Levant.” You can find the reason for this “code language” with any quick Google search.

The website “Now The End Begins” explains, “When Barack Obama refers over and over to the Islamic State as ISIL, he is sending a message to Muslims all over the Middle East that he personally does not recognize Israel as a sovereign nation, but as territory belonging to the Islamic State.”

*****

In the Book of Daniel, a major prophetic book discerning future events, you read about the Medes and the Persians, and the Kurds are the modern-day Medes. The nations that made up the Media-Persian Empire still exist.

“Iran today is a powerbroker in the Middle East and yet it’s not an Arab country; the Iranians are Persians,” says Jordan. “The point in Daniel is there’s a spiritual element to the behind-the-scenes conflict and that’s really the real problem.

"There’s a connection between the spiritual world and the affairs of this earth. There’s a connection in the Bible between what happens in the angelic world, and the angelic conflict, and the affairs of men on Planet Earth.”

*****

The Book of Daniel makes clear that in the interpretation given Daniel by God to explain Nebuchadnezzar’s dream, the four parts to the funny-looking, gold-headed image depict the four world empires as: Babylon, Media-Persia, Greece and Asia.

In a nutshell, that means the Antichrist, or the “little horn” of Daniel 8:9, will emerge from one of the ancient Greek empire’s four sections represented by Egypt to the south, Greece to the west, Syria to the east and Asia Minor (or present-day Turkey) to the north. He, in fact, arises from Turkey.

In correspondence with Daniel 7, John relays in Revelation 13 that he “stood upon the sand of the sea, and saw a beast rise up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his horns ten crowns, and upon his heads the name of blasphemy.
[2] And the beast which I saw was like unto a leopard, and his feet were as the feet of a bear, and his mouth as the mouth of a lion: and the dragon gave him his power, and his seat, and great authority.”

The great sea is the Mediterranean Sea and when it says Satan gave the Antichrist “his seat and great authority,” Satan’s seat is in Pergamos, not Europe.

"This is today’s Turkey, the land bridge between Europe and the Middle East and Europe and the East. Constantinople and Istanbul are the same city.

****

“There are things that have happened in the last couple of years that for 1500-1800 years weren’t there,” says Jordan in an old study. “Israel was not a nation; they are now.

“But, you see, if the Arabs went in there and just wiped them out tomorrow, that wouldn’t disturb me because what’s happening now, there’s no verse that’s been fulfilled. Maybe it’s a foreshadowing, but maybe it’s not.

“I don’t know of any prophetic Scripture about the ‘last days’ that you can look at and say, ‘That verse has been fulfilled.’ All the verses about Israel being in the land—okay, they’re in the land, but in those verses, He says, ‘I will gather you.’

“Well, if you know how Israel got put back into the land and made a nation and so forth, with the Balfour Declaration and all that stuff, boy, there was more UNgodliness than godliness in any of that!

“Now, God works through all kind of means, but I don’t know about that particular thing.

“They’ve certainly been re-gathered in unbelief, and that’s the way Scripture says it would be re-gathered. They will not only have to be in the land, they’ll have to be in control of Jerusalem—they’ll have to have a temple, so on and so forth.

“Maybe some of that is a foretaste, but then if I tell you it is, and they got wiped out, what’d I do to Bible prophecy? I said it didn’t come through. So I can’t guarantee it. Sure, I’d be happy if it was. I’m not trying to throw cold water on something,  I’m just saying you got to be careful because you can’t just assume they can’t get wiped out.

“People used to talk about Russia coming down and invading them. Well, that’s not what Ezekiel 38 and 39’s about, but when we were scared of Russia, it made good press.

*****

“In the 21^st Century, people who prognosticated what’s going to happen in the next 100 years (which is a stupid thing to do but people do it) said there are three potential places for there to be world wars.

“One is in the American West. You know it was just a little over 100 years ago there was the Mexican-American War and we took possession of Texas to California.

"Our country’s only been here a couple of hundred years so we think of it as monolithic, but it’s not necessarily that settled, so there’s that potential. That’s not a very big potential, but that’s one of the places they say.

“I was in Arizona last fall and I listened to one of these whack-jobs on the radio, and some guy calls in and he’s just hollering, ‘That land belongs to us; we need to take it back!’ He was a Mexican Independent, whatever. And the commentator did something I thought was brilliant.

“He said, ‘Let me get this right. You want to give New Mexico and Arizona back and what you want is for the Mexican government to run this part of the world and have the Mexican economy?’ The guy says, ‘Oh no, I don’t mean that!’ and the conversation just kind of faded away.

“The other place (predicted) was Poland, northern Europe, but in third place was Turkey.

“Turkey is the secular Islamic state that is very westernized. That part of the world has a tempestuous history and when I read about that I said, ‘Whoa, considering the things the Scriptures say will happen in the last days in that part of the world’ . . . You see, if I’m looking for something, I’m looking there because I know the Antichrist has to do these certain things, and has to be in control and things of that nature.”

*****

“You know all that stuff going on in Iraq and Syria and with this ISIS, you understand the Europeans drew all those boundary lines of the nations over there at the end of World War I. The Belgians and the French and the Englishmen. They divvied that up over there so they could control it and those national boundaries are man-made.

“After World War II the agreement was made, ‘Okay, now we’ve wiped out Europe and we’ve wiped out the East; we’ll go back and honor the boundaries that were set up after WW I so we don’t have to have another fight as to where the national borders ought to be.’ So they got reestablished.

“But those dudes over there, they don’t care about that stuff. And as long as somebody with a gun isn’t there to make them go by what some outlander said the borders are, they’re going to reestablish their own, and that’s what you’re seeing over there.

“Those people having tribal warfare; they still live in 7^th and 8^th Century kind of thinking processes. The feudal system Europe lived in is what they largely live in now, and as you take away the Western imposed structure, you see these things.

*****

“What you’re seeing is going to happen when the Antichrist arises. There are going to be ten nations there. Only ten and he’s going to come up and take control; subdue three of them and take over all of them and become the head of the ten and the verse in Daniel says he’s going to do it peaceably and ‘obtain the kingdom by flatteries.’

"The Antichrist's going to come in and stop the war, have the answer for peace and flatter everybody into thinking, ‘I’m the guy!’ Daniel 11:22 says, ‘And with the arms of a flood shall they be overflown from before him, and shall be broken; yea, also the prince of the covenant.’

“He’s going to come in, deliver Israel and then make them rich and get their loyalty. Verse 25: ‘And he shall stir up his power and his courage against the king of the south with a great army; and the king of the south shall be stirred up to battle with a very great and mighty army; but he shall not stand: for they shall forecast devices against him.’

“The Antichrist's going to go out and there’s going to be another big war and verse 27 says, ‘And both these kings' hearts shall be to do mischief, and they shall speak lies at one table; but it shall not prosper: for yet the end shall be at the time appointed.’

“You look at that and you think, ‘That just sounds like modern American politics,’ but what goes on in America goes on everywhere else. Listen, every country is the same way to one extent or another.

*****

“Now in the middle of all of that mess, verse 31 says, ‘And arms shall stand on his part, and they shall pollute the sanctuary of strength, and shall take away the daily sacrifice, and they shall place the abomination that maketh desolate.’

“You see there the daily sacrifice and the sanctuary? He has reestablished Judaism. One of the things the Antichrist does is rebuilds Israel’s temple and lets them have their Mosaic system again.

“Verse 32 says, ‘And such as do wickedly against the covenant shall he corrupt by flatteries: but the people that do know their God shall be strong, and do exploits.’

“There are going to be some people who understand what’s going on. Verse 35 says, ‘And some of them of understanding shall fall, to try them, and to purge, and to make them white, even to the time of the end: because it is yet for a time appointed.’

“So there’s going to be some wisdom among some people and they’re going to have an awareness. Where are they going to get the awareness? Out of these books (of the Prophets) that we’re reading!

“And Hosea says, ‘Who is wise? He’s going to understand. Who’s prudent? He’s going to know.’ The way they know it is because God gave it to them in a Book. These books!

*****

“You see that thing, ‘Who is wise?’ Isaiah 28:9 says, ‘Whom shall he teach knowledge? and whom shall he make to understand doctrine? them that are weaned from the milk, and drawn from the breasts.’

“How they’re going to know is they’re going to get it out of God’s Word. The Book of Hosea is the 28^th book in the Bible. There’s a strange thing about the Book of Isaiah.

“How many books are in the Bible? 66. How many chapters in Isaiah? 66. Isaiah begins, ‘Earth, earth, earth, hear the word.’ The Bible begins in Genesis with, ‘In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.’

“Isaiah 66 ends with a new heaven and a new earth and the lake of fire. The last book in the Bible, Revelation, concludes with a new heaven and a new earth and the lake of fire.

“How many books are in the Old Testament? 39. The first book in the New Testament, the Book of Matthew, quotes Isaiah 40 with, ‘The voice of one crying in the wilderness.’ John the Baptist shows up in Isaiah 40 just like he shows up in Matthew. Strange thing. If you read Isaiah, you’ll discover that each chapter in Isaiah, the thought patterns match that chapter of the Bible.

*****

“Daniel 11 is probably the hardest chapter in the Book of Daniel for me to understand. Starting in verse 5, the conflict between the king of the north and the king of the south is described. The way Daniel’s usually taught is that that’s Antiochus Epiphanes, and Scofield’s got all kind of hallucinations about who it is--Ptolemy and all these kinds of things, and that’s just speculation. It’s really the speculation of unbelief because it’s the excuse people use to try to put these things away.

“The whole chapter is future, and when you get down to verse 21, you’ve come to the Antichrist himself: ‘And in his estate shall stand up a vile person, to whom they shall not give the honour of the kingdom: but he shall come in peaceably, and obtain the kingdom by flatteries.’ ”

Table talk for Thanksgiving

“If you put truth on the table, it doesn’t matter how much error is there,” says Jordan. “If truth can get an opportunity to have a fair hearing, it will take care of itself. The problem is error knows this so it doesn’t want truth to get to the table, or if it does, it wants it to be on the table in a distorted manner.

“. . . Today there’s a great sense people have of being alienated, separated, being ‘out here by myself’ in the world. One of the reasons people join gangs, cults, movements . . .

"I remember years ago reading an article about Al Capone and Joe Kennedy. Kennedy and Capone were contemporaries, and had Kennedy not been a millionaire, he would have been considered a bootlegger. To this day, every bottle of Irish-Scotch whiskey that comes into America his family still gets a piece of.

“During the Prohibition, Al was over here in the speakeasies and he’s got guys importing it and making it in car radiators and stuff. Well, he’s a gangster, but him and Kennedy both had the same motivation; they just started at different social stratas.

“One had no money or political contact but he had street muscle. The other guy’s got political muscle and financial muscle. So one’s this big respected guy and the other, he's a ‘let’s-hang-him-and-get-rid-of-him’ kind of a guy. But the motivation behind both men was the same: Power, money.

*****

“One of things that motivates people is a desire to belong. To be a part of something special. Ephesians 1:4 says, ‘According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love.’

“I said many times that when you learn some things about 'right division' and the grace of God it will change some things in your life. It will probably change where you go to church.

"That’s a hard pill; people don’t like to hear that. But there’s a religious system out there, folks, that the Bible equates with ‘harlotry’ and ‘adultery.’  Being a part of it is considered being spiritually unfaithful to God, just like it would be if you stepped out on your marriage partner. That’s a serious thing.

“If the Adversary can confuse the physical things of your life—the circumstances and struggles of your life—with life itself, to divert you away and to cause you to walk by sight, he’s winning a victory.

"That’s why Paul says, ‘Don’t give place to the devil.’ In your life, walk in wisdom, walk in light, walk as children of the light. Understand what the battle is and understand you’re a part of it.”

*****

John writes in Revelation 16:13, “And I saw three unclean spirits like frogs come out of the mouth of the dragon, and out of the mouth of the beast, and out of the mouth of the false prophet.”

This is what’s called the ‘unholy trinity’—Satan (the dragon), the Antichrist (the beast) and the false prophet.

The next verse John reports, “For they are the spirits of devils, working miracles, which go forth unto the kings of the earth and of the whole world, to gather them to the battle of that great day of God Almighty.”

Jordan says, “Don’t ever think just because something appears to be a supernatural demonstration or miraculous event that it had to by nature be God. There are some demonic devil spirits, spirits of devils, working miracles. You never want to take what appears to be a supernatural event and immediately think because it’s supernatural in appearance that it’s God doing it.

“The only way you’re going to know if it’s God doing it is if you can find verses in the Bible that say God did it. That’s how you authenticate God doing it. Otherwise you won’t know if it’s these guys doing it or not.

*****

“Now, I understand that you go into the average church today, or the average Christian bookstore, or turn on the average Christian TV or radio show, or talk to the average Christian today, the standard for authenticity in the Christ life is your EXPERIENCE.

"There’s a bumper sticker: ‘My God is not dead; I talked to Him this morning’. I used to see that and say, ‘Man, that’s terrible! Every Muslim you know does that! Every Hindu you know talked to 15-20 of his gods this morning!' Your experience is only as good as somebody else’s experience. There’s no authority in that!

“We have a song in our song book, ‘He lives, I know He lives.’ Why? ‘Because He lives in my heart.’ That’s not good enough for some, though. The reason you know Jesus Christ is alive today is there is demonstrable evidence you could prove in a court of law.

 *****

“We live in the dispensation of grace where the prophetic program is not being carried on, but that doesn’t mean the way God set up creation isn’t carrying on.

 “The first eleven chapters of the book of Genesis, before God created the nation of Israel, God laid out in that 2,000-year period of time the methodology and the patterns by which the course of this world would be executed and carried on.

"In fact, when you start in Genesis 1: 1-2, you see it immediately: ‘In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth and the And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.’

“When I read that I say, ‘Wait a minute! God created the heaven and the earth and now there’s darkness!’ The Bible says that ‘God is light and in Him is no darkness at all.’ Doesn’t that immediately tell you there’s something out of whack there?!

"Verse 3-4 goes on, ‘And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.’

“There’s a cycle. There’s a contrast between darkness and light. There’s a cycle that makes up a day, and it starts out in the dark and it ends in the light. There’s a cycle going on.

“You get over to Genesis 8 after the Flood and God puts Noah on the earth and gives Noah to understand that the way the world is going to function is there are going to be cycles; summer and winter, seed time and harvest, and so forth.

*****

“And so as you watch the nations of the earth develop, you’re going to see cyclical patterns developing in the nations.

"In Genesis 8-10, God lays down some principles whereby the earth is populated by people and it’s more than just the physical darkness and light making a day, but there’s a cyclical nature in the life of nations. It only makes sense frankly.

"The pendulum swings back and forth that way. If that’s true of you in life, in the generation in which you live in, you can see how it would easily be true of nations. They would be affected by the overall shift of the way life works. Well, those things are laid out in Genesis.

“That’s why Solomon says there’s ‘a time for peace and for war.’ ‘A time to sow and a time to reap.’ Those kinds of things. There are cycles; ‘there’s nothing new under the sun.’ It’s a repetition of things.

“There are three ways to look at life; I call them dots, lines and circles. Some people look at life on the dot. There are whole cultures that do this. They always live in the present.

"If your life is always about 'the now,' that’s not bad in some ways, but in some ways it’s not good because if I take my watch, in 'the now’ it belongs to me, but if I lay it down, then who does it belong to?

“In 'the now,’ now nobody owns it. How do you establish ownership if you only live that way? Cultures that live in ‘the now’ are mainly nomadic. No possession of something unless you’re right there.”

War IS the answer

“The government has the responsibility of restraining evil and there isn’t but one way that’s done—it’s war,” explains Jordan.

“Biblically, there are three instances when killing is authorized: self-defense, capital punishment and military action authorized by a government against the enemy in the battle for the preservation of national freedom.

“A just war against a real evil; that kind of warfare is from God; He authorizes that. Now, if you’ll get that in your mind as a premise, you’ll never have a question about being a conscientious objector.

*****

“Numbers 32 presents a perfect case study in the Bible demonstrating the sinfulness of not going to war when it’s time to do so.

“Israel is going to go across into Canaan and they’re instructed to wage war on the people there illegitimately and throw them out. Now, two tribes—Reuben and Gad—find they like it on the eastern side of the Jordan River and tell Moses, ‘We’ll take this territory over here as our inheritance.’

“Moses responds, ‘It’s not right for you not to have to go and help fight to get the land—the Promised Land. Don’t start this pacifism stuff about how you’re not going to go fight; you’re gonna stay over there. The battle’s over here, guys! That’s the land God gave us.’

“You know what Moses’ saying? ‘If you don’t go to war when it’s time to war, it’s sinful.’ In Numbers 32:23, he says, ‘But if ye will not do so, behold, ye have sinned against the LORD: and be sure your sin will find you out.’

“Now, you’ve heard that verse preached by preachers for ages—how your sin will find you out—and they talk about your drunkenness, adultery, lying, stealing. They use the verse, pull it out of its context and preach against the things they don’t like, but that verse is talking about cowardice! It’s talking about the sin of not going to war when it’s time to go to war!

“Moses said, ‘Look guys, if you’ll go and fight with the other tribes and win the war and get the thing over with, then it will be okay for you to have this land over here. But if don’t, you can be sure your sin of cowardice—and refusal to war when it’s time to go to war—will find you out.’

“People, when it’s time to do something and go to war, it’s wrong not to. That’s very clear.”

*****

Another key Bible principle of war is a nation need not wait until the enemy attacks before striking back.

“The big hullabaloo made before the Iraq War was that you got to find a reason to link Iraq with Al Qaeda so you can prove they attacked us,” Jordan says, “But the verses say, ‘No, no, no!’ One of the ‘just war’ doctrines of Augustine was that you never attack first. That isn’t Bible, though.

“Numbers 32:32 says, ‘We will pass over armed before the LORD into the land of Canaan, that the possession of our inheritance on this side Jordan may be ours.’ That’s saying, ‘We’ll go over there and fight so that our land on this side over here, where we’re not fighting, is secure.’ You see, in the Bible, a preemptive strike is not out of the question. You don’t have to wait till the enemy hits you before you hit him.

“There are times, and this is an example, where God required the aggressive action without an enemy striking first. Why? Because the enemy was in the wrong place and it was time to get him out of there.”

(new article tomorrow)

No end to Koranic bloodlust

Next to the Koran, Muslims have another official Islamic “bible” called the Hadith. From the Hadith, which is broken into volumes, we're told the sins of Muhammad included "torturing people by cutting off their hands and feet and burning out their eyes with hot irons (vol.1, no. 234); leaving them to bleed to death after cutting off their limbs (vol. 8, nos. 794, 795); and making people die of thirst (vol. 8, no. 796)," documents Robert Morey, an internationally recognized scholar in comparative religions, in his 1992 book, “The Islamic Invasion.”

"Muhammad was a bitter, vengeful man who had numerous people murdered when they got on his bad side," writes Morey. "While Muhammad told others not to kill people when in Mecca and, in particular, not to kill people at the Kabah, when Muhammad heard that Ibn Khatal was taking refuge in the Kabah, he said, 'Kill him.' He was dragged out and butchered (vol. 3, no. 72).”

Of course, Muhammad’s actions are justified and promoted throughout the Koran.

In the English translation of the Koran called, “The Koran: The Book Responsible for Global Terrorism” (Moody Adams), is the heading, “ALLAH INSTIGATED ISLAMIC TERRORISM,” with such subtitles as:

1.       Allah sends prophets to spread terrorism, Koran 17:59: We send not a prophet with miracles but to strike terror.

2.       Allah commands Muslims to “strike terror” in the hearts of Islam’s enemies, Koran 8:60: Make ready then against them what force ye can, and strong squadrons wherby ye may strike terror into the enemy of God and your enemy.

3.       Allah brings terror attacks on the impious, Koran 7:4,5: How many cities have we destroyed! By night, or while they were in their midday slumber, did our wrath (terror) reach them. And what was their cry when our wrath (terror) reached them, but to say, “Verily, we have been impious.” (Pickthall translates ‘How many a township have We destroyed! As a raid by night, or while they slept at noon, Our terror came unto them. No plea had they, when Our terror came unto them, save that they said: Lo! We were wrong-doers.’)

Here are just several more of the hundreds of passages in the Koran, translated by the Moody Adams’ book, calling for killing:

Sura 3:140. God proves true believers by allowing them to be martyrs

Sura 3:156. Allah forbids criticism of those who die fighting for Islam

Sura 3:165. Those who do not go to War for Allah are hypocrites

Sura 8:12. Cut off the heads and fingers of the infidels who don’t believe in Allah. “When the Lord spake unto the angels, “I will be with you: therefore stablish ye the faithful. I will cast a dread into the hearts of the infidels.” Strike off their heads then, strike off from them every fingertip. This, because they have opposed God and his apostle: And whoso shall oppose God and his apostle . . . Verily, God will be severe in punishment.” This is for you! Taste it then! And for the infidels is the torture of the fire!”

Sura 8:65. Allah ordered Muhammad to stir up people to fight the infidels

Sura 9:81. Those who don’t go to war, do not get a second chance to escape hell

Sura 9:93. Those who do not go to war are sealed for hell

Sura 9:123. Wage war against your neighbors who do not believe in Allah.

Read Luke, then Acts

I’m working on another article about the Koran to hopefully post tomorrow. In the meantime, here’s an old piece that relates to Jordan's teachings this past weekend at a Bible conference held in North Carolina (www.royalgracebc.com):

“Back in the ’80s, I remember being on a car trip with an Ohio preacher who told me the first gospel he suggests Bible students read is Luke, not John . He explained to me, ‘Luke is Vol. 1 and the Book of Acts is Vol. 2,’ and I thought, ‘Wow, that’s right!’ So if you’re going to read the Book of Acts, it would help you greatly to read the Book of Luke first.

“I began with that little kernel of wisdom and went home and read Luke and Acts and I was impressed. Since then I’ve read Luke hundreds and hundreds of time with Luke and Acts together. It’s fascinating how they work together. When you only read Acts and you didn’t read Luke, you miss a lot that is in Acts because Luke writes both these books together.

“Something to remember is in Acts you’re not being told everything that happens. You’re just being told the information that’s there to point to the purpose of the Book of Acts, which is to show you the fall of Israel and salvation going to the Gentiles.

"But who’s writing the Book of Acts? Luke’s there; he knows what’s going on. He selectively picked out the things that he put there and selectively left out things.

“Acts 16:10 says, ‘And after he had seen the vision, immediately we endeavored to go into Macedonia, assuredly gathering that the Lord had called us for to preach the gospel unto them.’

“When he says ‘we’ and ‘us,’ what’s the writer doing? The writer is including himself in the story, and in the beginning here, you have what are called the ‘we’ sections of the Book of Acts.

“All the way down through Acts 16, Troas all the way up to Philippi, Luke is with Paul and you have the comments here about ‘we.’ Luke joins Paul at Troas and proceeds with Paul to the city of Philippi.

“The Lord says to Paul, ‘You can’t go into Asia anymore; now you’ve got to go over to Europe,’ and Luke comes along and is joined with Paul here. He connects up with Paul’s ministry here and it’s a fascinating thing because what you find is down through 16, Luke is with Paul but then if you look at chapter 17, Luke isn’t with him. When Paul leaves Philippi and then goes to Thessalonica, then Berea, Athens, Corinth, Ephesus and Macedonia, Luke doesn’t go with him.

*****

“When you talk about Paul being shipwrecked, hanging on night and day in the deep, you know who’s hanging on that board with him? Luke’s in the shipwreck with him! You understand why he calls him ‘beloved’?! Here’s a guy who stuck with him and committed to being with him.

“Acts 28:7. He accompanies Paul and is with him in the imprisonment! I think of that thing in Acts 16, Paul sees this Macedonian vision: ‘Come over to help!’ You ever sing that song about the Macedonian Call? The ‘man from Macedonia’ turns out to be a bunch of women by the riverside. Luke’s with him when he does that.

“There’s Lydia and those women whom the Lord opens their heart to the gospel and they get saved, and the little church at Philippi is born around that group of women converts. Paul begins to preach there and you remember that story about the woman who’s got the demon in her and she gets saved and there’s a glorious revival that takes places.

“The city’s taken over by the gospel there and the magistrates come out and they sic the law on Paul and they beat him and put him in jail. This is the time they beat him with 49 stripes save one and there’s Luke, the physician. You know he’s ministering to him. He’s with him in all that. He saw the hopes and the ministry and the excitement dashed and destroyed.

“When Paul is writing his Acts epistles Luke isn’t there, then Luke comes back and joins him again. And when he joins him at Philippi in Acts 20, he stays with Paul all through Greece, over into Palestine, when he’s imprisoned in Caesaria, when he has these voyages with the shipwrecks and all that kind of stuff, all the way to the prison in Rome.

*****

“What you begin to find when you read the Book of Acts, and you read Luke’s portrayal of Paul’s ministry in Acts, is Luke picks up terminology that reaches back into the Book of Luke and he’ll take things Jesus said in His earthly ministry and use the same terminology and ideas and concepts to show you Jesus working in the ministry of Paul. It’s a little more subtle, but it’s there. The more you read the two books over and over the more you see it.

“There’s stuff in Luke and Acts that demonstrate that they were written by a Gentile who had a Gentile perspective about Israel’s program and he has some up-front, first-hand knowledge about Paul’s ministry being a Gentile ministry and the only one of those companions of Paul’s over there at the end who would qualify to have been the author would be Luke.

“Luke’s gospel, when he wrote it, would have been thoroughly familiar to Paul. It would have been the gospel Paul was most familiar with. You remember he says in II Cor. 5, ‘Wherefore henceforth know we no man after the flesh: yea, though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now henceforth know we him no more.’

*****

Luke was perhaps the closest friend of the Apostle Paul’s, observes Jordan.

“Paul had a lot of friends but then you have some people who are just different than other kind of friends,” he says. “Luke turns out to be that kind of a person.

“Luke was the closest companion and the trusted confidant that Paul had in his life. Not just a friend who was a companion but one who was one as his own soul, who would faithfully work with him and who was so intimately involved in producing a historical record . . .

“Luke’s an important dude in Paul’s life and there’s things about Luke that you learn when you watch Paul’s life that you wouldn’t know any other way, and the only one of the four Gospels writers that I know how to identify who they are personally, is Luke, based upon his association with Paul.

“In Colossians 4:14, notice how Paul describes him: ‘Luke, the beloved physician.’ Paul used that term ‘beloved’ because there were people who were dear to him; people ‘in whom my soul is well-pleased.’ Someone where there’s a soul connection. Luke wasn’t just his doctor.

“II Timothy 4:11 says, ‘Only Luke is with me. Take Mark, and bring him with thee: for he is profitable to me for the ministry.' There Paul is in the latter extremity of his life. This is the last thing he wrote (II Timothy was the end of the writing of the Bible) and here you’re at the end of Paul’s life. He says in verse 6, ‘For I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand.’

“He’s aware that he’s going to die and Luke is with him. He was a faithful friend all the way to the end and it’s an example of that thing in II Tim. 2:2: ‘And the things that thou hast heard of me among many witnesses, the same commit thou to faithful men, who shall be able to teach others also.’

*****

“The relationship between Paul and Luke is extremely interesting. Luke was a scholar and a person with great intellectual prowess. He was a ‘member of the academy’; he was an educated man.  A man who knew how to function in the realm of education and thought and science.

“Just look at the introduction of the Book of Luke and what he says there in essence is, ‘I have been an exacting, thorough historian.’ He approached his work as a scholar and someone interested in the pursuit of the exactness with regard to what he’s doing. He’s a medical man; he’s a historian. He knows how to research something.

“But you remember the Apostle Paul was that kind of a person too. Sometimes you forget that. We think of the Apostle Paul running around preaching all over everywhere and causing riots and storms and getting people angry and being a jailbird and all that kind of business, but Paul also was a man of equal intellectual capacity as Luke.

“Acts 22:22. Acts 5:34. Do you know if you went to a Jewish synagogue today and talked to a rabbinical scholar, they often quote Gamaliel? He’s an ancient rabbinical scholar that the Jews even in the 21^st Century hold in repute. Paul says I was educated at the feet of Gamaliel. Acts 22:3. He’s educated in the best academies of the day. He was taught the perfect manner of the law.

“Acts 26:1. When he’s in front of the Jews defending himself, he goes right to the front. Paul says, ‘Listen, all of you guys know who I am! I was a rabbinical scholar of the first order, graduated at the head of my class. I profited.

Acts 26:3. Again he’s in front of Agrippa. Verse 2. Notice Paul was somebody they all knew. He wasn’t a wallflower who came out of the closet back here; he was a prominent leader and scholar in Israel.

“I read all that so you see Paul in his temperament and his background, was a scholar. Luke was the same. These guys had a natural kind of affinity for one another.”

*****

“Paul never met Jesus that we know of. Don’t you know that all of that time when Luke was doing all of that historical research, talking to all those eyewitnesses (Luke had a bedside manner to ingratiate himself), Paul was hungry to know about his Lord? I would have been.

“In Acts 20, he says, ‘Like Jesus said, it’s more blessed to give than to receive.’ You don’t read that in Matthew, Mark, Luke or John. Where’d he learn that? He’s got a bonafied scholar who specialized in the life of Jesus with him everywhere he went. Hanging out on that raft out there in the sea, bobbing up and down in the shipwreck. Paul was thoroughly familiar with the Book of Luke and could quote it.

“II Timothy 4:11.  At the end of the road with Paul, and Luke is there with him, look at what Paul’s interested in. Verse says, ‘The cloke that I left at Troas with Carpus, when thou comest, bring with thee, and the books, but especially the parchments.’

‘Troas is Luke’s home. Paul was involved in a literary interest (‘Send me the parchments—I got stuff to write!’) and Luke is with Paul when he’s involved in those things and I say, ‘Wow, here’s a guy who’s with him through all these things.’

“I think about that and I wonder, ‘Who influences who the most?’ Especially when he’s the one who’s with Paul when he paints that portrait of Israel’s Messiah being not just Israel’s Messiah, but Israel’s Messiah so God’s promise could go to the nations.”

******

“Hank Williams got the tune for ‘I Saw the Light’ from the classic southern hymn, ‘He Set Me Free.’ All you have to do is listen to the chorus of the old standby to hear the resemblance.

“Part of the hymn lyrics go, ‘The Comforter divine is dwelling
Within my soul today;
His love to others I am telling
Since Jesus came to stay.’

“Deuteronomy 13:6 represents ‘the greatest definition of a friend anywhere in the Bible or in literature.’ The verse reads, ‘If thy brother, the son of thy mother, or thy son, or thy daughter, or the wife of thy bosom, or thy friend, which is as thine own soul, entice thee secretly, saying, Let us go and serve other gods, which thou hast not known, thou, nor thy fathers.’

“It’s one of those verses in the Bible that tells you about a topic when it isn’t talking about the topic. There’s a lot of things in Scripture that ‘I write this and I’m teaching you about this’ and then there will be a comment that you look at it and say, ‘Wow, that’s some real understanding about something else too!’

“Notice how he defines a friend for you. You know who the son of your mother is. You know your brother. You know who your wife is, but what about your friend? Moses said ‘your friend which is as your own soul.’ Here’s somebody where it’s more than just a surface relationship. You’ve got a soul connection.

“ ‘With the heart man believeth unto righteousness,’ Romans 10 says. Your soul has a way of communicating, a way of knowing. The mentality of your soul in the Bible is called your heart. Proverbs 23:7 says, ‘For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he: Eat and drink, saith he to thee; but his heart is not with thee.’

“We use a phrase: we talk about our ‘soul mate.’ That comes out of that verse in Deuteronomy 13:6. People don’t know where they got it from but that’s where it comes from. There’s a connection in a deeper, inner level of the heart. ‘As a man thinketh in his heart.’ We’ve got a thinking process that connects us together and makes us one on a level that’s much different than just the surface level.

“That helps you when you read John 15. Here’s the thing you need to grasp about a friend and being a friend of God. In the passage, Jesus Christ and the apostles have left the Upper Room and they’re now walking on the way to the Garden and Christ continues the conversation with them and says to them in chapter 15:14, ‘Ye are my friends if you do whatsoever I command you.’

“In other words, a friend is somebody who can think and do like Christ thinks. Verse 15.  A servant doesn’t know some things but the friend does. A friend is somebody who’s as your own soul. You pour out your inner being to them; you tell them what’s inside, what’s in your thinking, what’s in your heart.

“Jesus said, ‘I’ve called you friends because I’ve told you. I haven’t sent you out without a sense of what’s going on. I’ve communicated with you all the things the Father has given to me.’ A friend is someone who gets information that no one else has access to. Now you know that in personal relationships but when it’s talking about Scripture, the idea here is that to be a friend is you’re going to get all of the information.

“Now the reason that’s important…come with me to the Book of James. James 2:21. The first person in the Bible ever called ‘the friend of God’ is Abraham. The reason he’s called that is because Abraham obeyed some specific instructions that God gave him, and when God gave him information that he hadn’t given to anybody else, Abraham stood on that information. It allowed him to be called ‘the friend of God.’ Not just the servant who doesn’t know what his master does, but the friend who is taking action based upon something the Father told him to do.

“II Chronicles 20:7 is where he’s called ‘the friend of God.’ You see when Abraham is called the friend of God, he’s called that in connection with his seed.

*****

“Ephesians 2:11. If you were an alien and a stranger that’s as opposite as you can be from being a friend and the reason God made this distinction between the Gentiles down here and the circumcision (Israel) up there, those people up there were His friends and these people down here were aliens and strangers.

“The people in Israel were a friend and it had to do with the fact God had given them some information He didn’t give anybody else.

“One of the great verses about that is in Exodus 33:11. God was communicating to Israel what he was going to do.”

*****

“A verse that demonstrate how the term ‘friend’ is used in the Bible is in Proverbs 17:9: ‘He that covereth a transgression seeketh love; but he that repeateth a matter separateth very friends.’

“Notice gossip and evil reports separate friends. Well, the implication there is a friend is someone who’s not separated from you, who’s one with you, who’s a companion. Verse 17 says, ‘A friend loveth at all times, and a brother is born for adversity.’

“A friend is somebody where circumstances and your conduct and that kind of stuff isn’t really the issue. They have a value and esteem for you and they’re going to love you regardless of what the circumstances in your life are; regardless what the adversity that comes in life will be.

“Proverbs 18:24 says, ‘A man that hath friends must shew himself friendly: and there is a friend that sticketh closer than a brother.’

“It’s kind of a two-way street and ‘there is a friend that sticketh closer than a brother.’ The context is found in verse 22: ‘Whoso findeth a wife findeth a good thing, and obtaineth favour of the LORD.’ Who he’s talking about is really your spouse.

“A friend is somebody who will be more loyal to you and value and esteem you more than a family member. My point is friendship is something esteemed very highly in God’s Word.

“Probably the most famous friend quote in the Scripture is when Judas approaches the Lord Jesus Christ in the Garden to betray Him and the Lord Jesus Christ looks at him and He says, ‘Hail, friend.’ That title that Jesus is using comes out of a verse in Psalm 41:9: ‘Yea, mine own familiar friend, in whom I trusted, which did eat of my bread, hath lifted up his heel against me.’

“Christ quoted part of that verse in John 13 when He was with His apostles in the Upper Room.

“This is a song of David, and when David historically is writing it, he’s talking about Ahitophel, his friend. Prophetically it turns out to be talking about the Lord Jesus Christ and the one who’s going to betray him.

“So what’s a friend? It’s somebody I’ve trusted. Here’s somebody that I’ve had close communion with. He’s closer than a brother. Here’s somebody I trust with my heart and here’s somebody I sit at the table . . . I share what belongs to me with this person and if it’s mine, it’s theirs. And if I have it, then they can consume it. They’re with me. And we’re not just attached together because of work or circumstances—we have an attachment together based upon esteem and value for one another.”

Friends and neighbors?

The top headline on Drudge Report as I write this is, “Paris terrorist ‘Syrian refugee’ ”

Other breaking news from the site:

“Obama moves to ‘increase and accelerate’ admission of Syrian refugees”

“Muslims on track to exceed Jewish population in USA”

"Arrivals in New Orleans"


*****

In the book, “The Koran—The book responsible for Global Terrorism,” are hundreds of capsule translation summaries of passages from the Koran. Here are just a few:

When Islam comes to a land the natives are defeated, their borders are reduced

Sura 21 44. For their succor have they no power; neither shall the gods they join with God screen them from Us. Yes! We have given these men and their fathers enjoy-merits so long as their life lasted. What! See they not that we come to a land and straiten its borders? Is it they who are the conquerors?

45. Say: I only warn you of what hath been revealed to me: but the deaf will not hear the call, wherever they are warned; Yet if a breath of thy Lord’s chastisement touch them, they will assuredly say, ‘Oh! woe to us! we have indeed been offenders.’

 Instead of making friends with unbelievers, kill them

Sura 4 91. They desire that you should be infidels as they are infidels and that ye should be alike. Take therefore none of them friends, till they have fled their homes for the cause God. If they turn back, then seize them, and slay them wherever ye find them; but take none of them as friends or helpers, except those who shall seek an asylum among your allies. And those who come over to you—their hearts forbidding them to make war on you, or to make war on their own people. Had God pleased, he would have given them power against you, and they would have made war upon you! But, if they depart from you, and make not war against you and offer you peace, then God alloweth you no occasion against them.

Muslims who make friends with unbelievers lose their salvation

Sura 3 28. Let not believers take infidels for their friends rather than believers: whoso shall do this hath nothing to hope from God—unless, indeed, ye fear a return. SAY: Whether ye hide what is in your breasts, or whether ye publish it abroad, God knoweth it: He knoweth what is in the heavens and what is in the earth; and over all things is God potent. On that day shall every soul find present to it, whatever it hath wrought of good: and as to what it hath wrought of evil, it will wish that wide were the space between itself and it! But God would have you beware of Himself; for God is kind to His servants.

31. SAY: If ye love God, then follow me: God will love you, and forgive your sins, for God is Forgiving, Merciful.

Shorted by 'short accounts'

Thankfully, I was never raised to believe I had to “confess my sins,” as much as I do remember praying as a kid that God would forgive me for some sin I’d committed.

When I first started attending Shorewood (in 1991 at the age of 27) and heard how Believers were no longer to “keep short accounts with God,” I had no idea what was meant by that. It was years later before I knew the definition of the term.

*****

A definition I found on a preacher’s blog site today reads:

“To keep your accounts payable on a ‘short basis’ simply means to keep them ‘paid up,’ or rather, not to let them become extended. An example of this would be to pay off your credit card balance every month.

“In the spiritual sense, when looking at the theology that prescribes this practice, it always refers to confession of sin(s) (the equivalent of a liability or debt in accounting terms), and requesting to be forgiven of sins on a daily basis.1 When you hear believers say that they are ‘prayed up’ this invariably means that they’ve got all their sins ‘confessed up.’ ”

*****

I am often reminded how so many Christians never get on to any kind of mature, adult relationship with their Savior because preachers, etc., keep them stuck in child-mode thinking that says they have to constantly “get right” again with God after screwing up.

Any kind of peripheral examination of the writings/sermons of famous theologians through the ages reveals this is precisely what's taught, causing untold damage to the Body of Christ by its alliance to Satan’s Lie program.

Look at this passage from a book by internationally-renowned preacher A. B. Simpson, a hugely prolific author (70-plus books) and hymn-writer from the 1800s who founded the Christian and Missionary Alliance:

“It is a good thing to keep short accounts with God. I was very much struck some years ago with an interpretation of the verse: So then every one of us shall give account of himself to God (Romans 14:12). The thought it conveys is that of accounting to God daily. For us judgment is passed as we lay down on our pillows each night. This is surely the true way to live. It is the secret of great peace. It will be a delightful comfort when life is closing or at the Master’s coming, to know that our account is settled and our judgment over. For us, then, there is only the waiting to hear the glad Well done, good and faithful servant; . . . enter thou into the joy of thy Lord (Matthew 25:21).”

*****

To see what a “modern man of God” like ultra-famous mega-church preacher Rick Warren, author of the “Purpose-Driven Life,” wants us to believe, look at this written passage of his:

“ ‘Clean hands’ simply means a clear conscious. Does that mean we’re perfect? No. None of us is perfect. But we can keep short accounts with God. 1 John 1:9 (TLB) says, ‘But if we confess our sins to him, he can be depended on to forgive us and to cleanse us from every wrong.’ So when we sin, we just say, ‘God, I was wrong. I confess it.’ There is no power without a clear conscience.”

*****

In another preacher’s blog site, he writes, “When we confess, when we keep short accounts with God, we can rest assured in his forgiveness and then rejoice in his great love for us. In Psalm 32 David talks about the relief there is in keeping short accounts with God.

“First he tells us there is blessing in forgiveness and a burden in keeping from confessing. In Psalm 32, David is confessing his sin with Bathsheba and declares that those who are forgiven are blessed or happy.

“David knew this all too well, but it wasn’t because he hadn’t kept this from God or others who could point him to God’s forgiveness. In fact, David admits that he had kept this secret and that in so doing, there was not joy, but rather sadness and weariness, even to his bones (Psalm 32:3). As we read this Psalm, actually see the freedom that is realized in confession, because we are forgiven.”

*****

In a study from John 13 and its famous passage on the washing of the disciples’ feet by Jesus, Jordan explains where people get the idea of having to keep “short accounts” for a right walk with God:

“The idea is the disciples are clean but now Jesus Christ is going to wash their feet. That’s that experiential, continual kind of cleansing.

“The Word is what’s going to cleanse them and it’s the Word that gives them the total permanent cleansing, and they take that cleansing that is theirs in totality and bring it into their experience. That’s why He says, ‘Abide in me.’

“Abiding is, ‘You’re in me, now remain in that position, identity, fellowship, understanding and truth. Don’t go out here and try to do it yourself.’

"He’ll tell then in a minute that, ‘Without me you can do nothing.’

“Again, the Old Covenant is ‘you do it,’ and New Covenant is ‘I’ll do it for you.’ It is the Word that cleanses us.

“In Psalm 119:9, David says, ‘Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way? by taking heed thereto according to thy word.’ "

God proof-tests for confidence, influence

“Daniel wasn’t some rough, camel-hide-for-a-coat prophet over on the backside of the wilderness bellowing out rebuke,” says Jordan in a Grace School of the Bible study. “He was a man in the king’s palace, taking a stand. He takes a stand and God stands with him.

“I say to you, folks, any commitment you ever make in the things of the Lord is going to be tested to prove its reality. It’s cheap to say, ‘I’m gonna do this for the Lord.’ The Lord’s gonna find out whether you mean that or not.

“The great saints down through the ages got tested—every one of them—to find out if the commitment was real and to prove the reality of it to themselves. God knows whether it’s real or not, but to prove it to yourself and those around you . . .

“James said, ‘Knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience. But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing.’

“When I read Daniel 1:13, I say, ‘Man, there’s a man with confidence!’ You know something, folks, compromise results in doubt, but purity--that uncompromising commitment to do what God wants done--always brings confidence.

“When you’re sinning, you’re always looking over your shoulder and wondering if it will work. But when you just stand for the Lord and stand for what He says, you know what will happen? There’s confidence, that boldness to know, ‘Hey, the Lord’s gonna do it.’

*****

Daniel 1: 8-9 says, “But Daniel purposed in his heart that he would not defile himself with the portion of the king's meat, nor with the wine which he drank: therefore he requested of the prince of the eunuchs that he might not defile himself.
[9] Now God had brought Daniel into favour and tender love with the prince of the eunuchs.”

Jordan explains, “God had already worked on Daniel’s behalf, even though Daniel probably didn’t even know it. He had a life that reflected the genuine nature of the commitment he'd made.

“That’s why purity of life is so important. You need to have a sweet, gentle, loving, kind, outgoing spirit. Daniel had it and that validated his message. He showed the reality of God at work, so he’d already found some favor; already had some influence.

“There are number of people in the Bible who come to mind like that. Joseph found favor with Pharaoh, we’re told.

“Psalm 106 says, 43] Many times did he deliver them; but they provoked him with their counsel, and were brought low for their iniquity.
[44] Nevertheless he regarded their affliction, when he heard their cry:
[45] And he remembered for them his covenant, and repented according to the multitude of his mercies.
[46] He made them also to be pitied of all those that carried them captives.

“Isn’t that wonderful how God can do that? God sends Israel out there to be in captivity but He made the society that held them captive love them and pity them and be ‘kindly affectioned’ toward them. Why in the world did He do that? Because of His covenant.

“Proverbs 16:7 says, ‘When a man's ways please the LORD, he maketh even his enemies to be at peace with him.’

“When those peoples’ ways walked in the ways of God, even their enemies we’re influenced by it and were at peace with them.

“Paul says almost the same thing in a different way in I Timothy 2: ‘I exhort therefore, that, first of all, supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks, be made for all men;
[2] For kings, and for all that are in authority; that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty.
[3] For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour.’

*****

“Now watch what happens to Daniel in Daniel 1:15. It says he was proved for ten days ‘and at the end of ten days their countenances appeared fairer and fatter in flesh than all the children which did eat the portion of the king's meat.’

“There’s a verse in Proverbs that tells you about that. Proverbs 3: 5-7 says, ‘Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding.
[6] In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.
[7] Be not wise in thine own eyes: fear the LORD, and depart from evil.’

“Daniel knew what was going on and God honored him. He knew God would take care of him and he knew if he needed to keep a little color in his face and gain 10 pounds it wouldn’t be any problem for the Lord to put on a pound a day, no matter what he was eating.

“Daniel 1:16 says, ‘Thus Melzar took away the portion of their meat, and the wine that they should drink; and gave them pulse.’

“That verse is important. That verse tells me that Melzar, when he put that old porridge in front of Daniel and that glass of cold water, he’d put the beefsteak and the wine goblet down there too. But he took that away and just gave them the other from that point on; Dan and the boys don’t eat the king’s meat.

“Verse 17 goes on, ‘As for these four children, God gave them knowledge and skill in all learning and wisdom: and Daniel had understanding in all visions and dreams.’

*****

“Proverbs 22:29 says, ‘Seest thou a man diligent in his business? he shall stand before kings; he shall not stand before mean men.’

“Listen, if you’ll be diligent in the little thing God gave you to do and thank Him, it’s a LITTLE thing and you’re not in over your head . . . Daniel and these boys put purity about everything else.

“My dear friend, purity is the MAIN business of the Believer. It’s of FIRST importance. Dan put it first and God gave him influence.

“There’s a verse in Jeremiah 45:5 that means a lot to me. It says, ‘And seekest thou great things for thyself? seek them not: for, behold, I will bring evil upon all flesh, saith the LORD: but thy life will I give unto thee for a prey in all places whither thou goest.’

“You want to have influence for the Lord? You just be faithful and uncompromising in your commitment to Him. If you’ll be faithful in the little things and remain faithful, God will give you influence for Him.

*****

“Daniel 1:20 says, ‘And in all matters of wisdom and understanding, that the king inquired of them, he found them ten times better than all the magicians and astrologers that were in all his realm.’

“How many days back in verse 12 did He prove them? Ten days. ‘He found them 10 times better than all the musicians and the astrologers in all his realm.’

“You got to look at a passage in Psalm 119 with that. The psalm says, ‘O how love I thy law! it is my meditation all the day.
[98] Thou through thy commandments hast made me wiser than mine enemies: for they are ever with me.
[99] I have more understanding than all my teachers: for thy testimonies are my meditation.
[100] I understand more than the ancients, because I keep thy precepts.
[101] I have refrained my feet from every evil way, that I might keep thy word.
[102] I have not departed from thy judgments: for thou hast taught me.
[103] How sweet are thy words unto my taste! yea, sweeter than honey to my mouth!
[104] Through thy precepts I get understanding: therefore I hate every false way.’

“Ten times greater than the best brains Babylon had to offer! You know how? Sticking with that Book, being true to what God gave them to do.”

Unprogrammable transparent reality

Paul assures in Romans 8:28 that “all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.”

Jordan explains, “The ‘good’ in that verse is not money, fame, popularity, wealth, health and success; it’s the purpose of God.

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

“What is His purpose in your life? ‘That we should be conformed to the image of His Son.’

“Galatians 2:20 says, ‘I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.’

“I want to tell you something, folks. The apathy and the shallowness, the worldliness, the failure to give and the burnout in the pulpit and in the pew, the fear of soul-winning, the flabby self-discipline, the maxed-out schedules, the chronic shortage of strong men in the work of the ministry--all the problems people point to are not going to be fixed by programs.

*****

“There are, according to the pollsters, 500 million evangelical Christians in the world. That means there are 3 ½ billion people in the world who are NOT evangelical Christians.

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

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

“It has to do with the fact they don’t ‘rightly divide the Word of truth,’ so they have no idea what they’re really doing. They don’t even know the right message to preach to win people or to have it be the real power of God working through them.

“So they think the church is a bunch of programs and running a building. It’s time you and I, the Church, just go and BE the Church. Let’s go be who we are in Christ.

*****

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

“The transparent reality that ought to be there will be there. Paul says in that passage that we’re not to give place to the devil. He’s talking about animosity.

“He says, ‘Let him that stole steal no more.’ They’ll be the giving ones. They’ll be a group of people who say, ‘You know, enough is enough! You can only make so much money and use it on yourself. You can only live in so many houses. You can only drive so many cars, have so many boats, so many diamond rings. There’s enough and now I can use my resources to help others that are in need.’

“Paul says, ‘Be ye kind one to another, tender-hearted.’ There’ll be a genuine community brought together.

*****

“You know why the godhead is a trinity? Because that’s who God is. The Muslims says, ‘God is one.’ No, He’s not. He’s one God (there’s only one God) but He’s in three persons.

“Did you know a Muslim will cut your head off for that? Their teachings, their doctrine, their religion says you’re a heretic if you don’t believe there’s only one God, one person, one All-Supreme Allah?

“You can be supreme—the top dog—if you’re just one, but you know there’s some limitations to you. Adam was alone and God said it wasn’t good. That’s not the kind of life the trinity lives.

“You can have two people and you can have unity and harmony and you can say, ‘Well I love you,’ but you know, it’s hard to love when it’s just two people. You know why? Because you never know for sure what would happen if a third person came along. ‘Would they love each other and not me?’

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

“The kind of life the godhead lives, the kind of life He gave you, is a life where God the Father lives for God the Son, and God the Son lives for the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit lives to glorify the Son.

“Each member of the godhead lives in community for the other. That’s why Paul says, ‘To make all men see what is the fellowship.’ He didn’t say, ‘Make everybody just see the (dispensational) chart.’ He said, ‘Let everybody see the life of Christ in you; the life of the triune God living in you.’

“You don’t see that in buildings. You see that in people. Be the church! The armor is a spiritual armor of doctrine designed to produce the edification and energy so that you’ll just be who you are individually and corporately for His glory.”

Just do it and doors will open

“There’s a principle,” Jordan says in an old Grace School of the Bible VCR tape. “Old man Bob Jones (1883-1968) used to say, ‘Duties never conflict.’ And you need to write that down upon the impress of the doorway of your mind and never forget it. It will get you through some real questionable situations.

“There’s another one the old man (an Alabama-born evangelist and pioneer religious broadcaster who founded Bob Jones University) used to say and these two pieces of advice have meant more to me through the years than almost anything and that’s, ‘The greatest ability is dependability.’ That will help you get through some real tough spots of self-doubt.

“If you have the heart attitude and be what God’s given you to be--a member of the Body of Christ functioning in that way wherever you are--you’ll find He’ll open doors and begin to move you around when He’s ready to. Doors will open and you’ll go.

“Paul writes in II Corinthians 7:1, ‘Having therefore these promises, dearly beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God.’

“God’s will is that you be clean. Holiness, not a holy mess. God expects you to strive for perfect holiness in the fear of God.

“The will of God is not so much to worry about where you are as much as it is He wants you to BE where you are, living a sinless life. Your attitudes first, then your actions.

*****

“Romans 1:11 says, ‘For I long to see you, that I may impart unto you some spiritual gift, to the end ye may be established.’

“This is why Paul wants to go to them. Paul’s got a big heart. He’s just an affectionate, loving fellow. He loved them. He never saw them before but he loved them.

“That verse compares with Romans 16:25: ‘Now to him that is of power to stablish you according to my gospel, and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery, which was kept secret since the world began.’

“The issue in Paul’s mind is, ‘I want to get down there and I want you people to be established.’ He says in I Thessalonians 3:10 that he’s ‘night and day praying exceedingly that we might see your face, and might perfect that which is lacking in your faith?’

“The issue in Paul’s mind is first and foremost, always and ever, maturity. Grow up.

“The spiritual gift he wants to give them is doctrine. That word ‘stablish’ means to be firmly grounded so that you can stand unshakably. Be grounded, stabilized, balanced-out so you stand. You’re not tossed to and fro.

“Verse 12 says, ‘And the Lord make you to increase and abound in love one toward another, and toward all men, even as we do toward you.’

“You’ll always find that the teacher is as richly blessed as the pupil when you teach the Word and that’s what he’s saying there. Sometimes he sends a letter to do the job and sometimes he sends a man, like in I Thessalonians 3, he sent Timothy to establish the Thessalonians because he couldn’t come. The job is always to see the people get stabilized in your ministry.

*****

“Romans 1:13-15 says, [13] Now I would not have you ignorant, brethren, that oftentimes I purposed to come unto you, (but was let hitherto,) that I might have some fruit among you also, even as among other Gentiles.
[14] I am debtor both to the Greeks, and to the Barbarians; both to the wise, and to the unwise.
[15] So, as much as in me is, I am ready to preach the gospel to you that are at Rome also.

“When he talks about Greeks and Barbarians, that’s the way the Greeks divided up the world. The Greeks, when they looked at the world, said, ‘There’s the wise Greeks and the unwise Barbarians.'

“The word ‘barbarian’ means basically ‘uneducated guy.’ It’s a reference to somebody who can’t speak Greek, in its meaning at THAT time and not today.

*****

“Regarding verse 14, I was just in a meeting where this guy wanted to advertise his bible school out on the West Coast and he gets up and says, ‘If you can’t speak Greek, you got no business teaching and preaching the Word of God.’

“I asked him, ‘When you teach and preach the Bible, do you do it in Greek?’ He said, ‘No, I teach and preach in English.’ I reminded him ‘that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation.’

“I said, ‘How come you can privately interpret what the passage says and give it to me and I’m supposed to trust you and I can’t trust the 47 translators that did my Bible here? How come you know so much more than they do?’

“All of a sudden it got to wet to plow. You see, all of a sudden you got the old thing, ‘You got to have the Greek to understand God’s Word and have it really unfolded to you.’ Do you know Greek? Well, I don’t, so where do I have to go to get it?

“What Paul’s talking about in verse 14 doesn’t has nothing to do with speaking Greek today. I mean, in the world at that time there were the cultured, educated people who were the Greeks and the philosophers and all. The Greeks sort of looked down on everybody else in a hoity-toity kind of way. It was, ‘Either you’re one of us or you’re one of them.’

“And Paul says, ‘I’m bound to preach to the Greeks AND the barbarians.' That’s everybody, whether they’re the 'in-society' and the scholars union or whether they’re the outcasts and dummies on the streets.

*****

“Paul says, ‘I am ready, Rome.’ He’s ready to go. No hesitation in Paul about going and preaching. And he doesn’t miss a chance.

“Notice he says, ‘I am debtor.’ In verse 15, he says, ‘I am ready.’ In verse 16, he says, ‘I am not ashamed.’ That’s a good sermon outline.

“Acts 21:13 says, ‘Then Paul answered, What mean ye to weep and to break mine heart? for I am ready not to be bound only, but also to die at Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus.’  

“He says, ‘I mean, what are you trying to do, break my heart? ‘For I am ready not to be bound.’

“Brother, that’s a man that’s ready, you know that? He meant it when he said that. And he never missed a chance.

“Come over to II Timothy 4:6 and notice his attitude right at the end: ‘But watch thou in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, make full proof of thy ministry.
[6] For I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand.
[7] I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith.’

“You see, that man could look at his life and at any time say, ‘I’m ready.’ ‘I’m ready to go, take advantage of the opportunities that come; I’m ready to meet the Lord.’

“Now, THAT'S the way to live your life, ladies and gentlemen, IF you’re going to LIVE it. That’s cocked and ready all the time. Rain or shine, hot or cold, whatever the situation.

“You are to be ready to do whatever God put you wherever you are to do, no matter what the cost, with a heart of love, but do it! See, do it!”

(editor’s note: sorry for delay on memoir update. Will be posting very soon)