Unclouded vision of Rapture

In his new book, “The Rapture: A Controversy Settled,” Bible scholar R. Dawson Barlow correlates the word ‘Rapture,’ a simple redefinition of the phrase “caught up” in the King James Bible, with the Raptor birds of Europe and Asia.

He explains that while the doctrine of the “catching away,” is often “explained away as an emotional experience and its true significance gets lost in a maze of spiritualized, subjective and mystical explanations," Noah Webster’s “now rare” definition of Raptor birds “offers a very vivid reminder of the old literal definition of the Rapture.

“Webster defines them as, ‘Living on prey, having feet modified with sharp, curved claws, for SEIZING prey . . . hawks, eagles, owls, vultures.’ ”

Barlow recalls a PBS documentary on Raptor birds that “actually photographed a large eagle swooping down on a newborn mountain goat, snatching him away and carrying him far up into the air. The narrator of the program said there is regional folklore concerning human babies who were left alone and were snatched away by these birds.”

*****

At the Rapture the Body of Christ is literally brought together into one unit in the air to then meet with Jesus Christ.

“We really have the reunion before we get to be with the Lord, and it’s at this point the Body of Christ is completed,” explains Richard Jordan (shorewoodbiblechurch.org). “He’s the head, we’re the body, and we’re put together, all in our glorified bodies. We’ve lost all connection to Adam and we’re caught up together for the very first time, but we’ll all be together.”

Among clear statements detailing this extremely literal pivotal event in history, is I Thessalonians 2:16-17: [16] For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first:
[17] Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.

Jordan says, “Now when Paul talks about being caught up ‘in the clouds,’ there’s a discussion you hear people have about what are the clouds. People say, ‘Well, they’re not rain clouds. It’s not storm clouds.’

“There’s that verse in Matthew 26 where it says the Lord Jesus Christ is going to come ‘in the clouds of heaven,’ but it’s not a thunderstorm we’re talking about here.

“People say the clouds are really angels, the heavenly host, but that’s not it. When the Bible talks about the Lord of hosts, it’s talking about a host of angels. Seems to me if Paul had wanted to say ‘angels’ he would have said angels, and if he wanted to say 'the host of heaven'--that’s certainly what angels are.

“When he says we’ll be caught up together with Him in the clouds, I think it’s going to be clouds. Clouds are clouds are clouds.

“Hebrews 12 begins with, ‘Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about by so great a cloud of witnesses . . .’

“You see that expression? The word ‘cloud’ there is not talking about a cloud of water vapor. It’s talking about a big group of witnesses. It’s talking about all the people he’s listed in chapter 11. You can use the word ‘cloud’ in the sense of talking about a big group of people. Not just like a cumulus water vapor cloud in the sky.

******

“In a passage that prophetically looks toward the Second Coming of Christ, II Samuel 22:8-13 says,

[8] Then the earth shook and trembled; the foundations of heaven moved and shook, because he was wroth.
[9] There went up a smoke out of his nostrils, and fire out of his mouth devoured: coals were kindled by it.
[10] He bowed the heavens also, and came down; and darkness was under his feet.
[11] And he rode upon a cherub, and did fly: and he was seen upon the wings of the wind.
[12] And he made darkness pavilions round about him, dark waters, and thick clouds of the skies.
[13] Through the brightness before him were coals of fire kindled.

“This is a psalm of David that matches Psalm 18. The issue is, under Jesus Christ’s feet was darkness and thick clouds. Psalm 97 says, ‘The LORD reigneth; let the earth rejoice; let the multitude of isles be glad thereof. [2] Clouds and darkness are round about him: righteousness and judgment are the habitation of his throne.’

“The way He made darkness pavilions round about Him is with clouds that veil off His glory. If you get clouds that are thick and dense enough to black out the sun . . . I’ve flown into a cloud bank that looked just as dark as night but when you flew into it, the clouds were just as light and white. What the darkness really is is a shadow.

“You get these thick clouds with water vapor in them and they block off the sun and under the bottom of that cloud you really have a shadow and it looks dark, but they’re just as white as can be because it’s the optics of the thing. What the cloud does is veils back the sunlight. Around the Lord He does the same thing. He has clouds to sort of veil off His glory.”

*****

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

“Paul’s talking about the light of the majesty of the manifestation of His person. God as being God cannot be limited by time or space, but because He is God, and He does have a creation that He has made, He chooses to manifest Himself to His creation.

“He chooses to do that in a geographic location. That’s part of what the third heaven is about. When He does it, it’s in a blazing representation of light and it’s called ‘the glory of God.’ But when that glory appears (when the manifestation of his person appears) it is so overwhelming that you can’t approach to it.

"So He veils it off in the Scripture over and over, and what He veils it with are clouds. The clouds put a filter, as it were, on the glory and what you have to veil off that light to which no man can approach is a ‘pavilion round about Him.’

“According to the dictionary, a pavilion is a temporary building erected for the use of an exhibitor. In other words, God builds a temporary structure around Him in which He exhibits His glory and the pavilion is made of clouds.

*****

“I Kings 8:10-13 says, ‘And it came to pass, when the priests were come out of the holy place, that the cloud filled the house of the LORD,
[11] So that the priests could not stand to minister because of the cloud: for the glory of the LORD had filled the house of the LORD.
[12] Then spake Solomon, The LORD said that he would dwell in thick darkness.
[13] I have surely built thee an house to dwell in, a settled place for thee to abide in for ever.’

“Notice what happens in verse 12. In other words, what that cloud is doing is holding back, making it so you could approach to the Lord.

“This happens all through the Old Testament back there with Israel. In Exodus 19, the Israelites had the pillar of fire by night and the cloud by day. The cloud represented the Lord’s presence in their midst, but it’s a cloud because it’s engulfed. It’s veiled off.

*****

“Exodus 19:9 says, ‘And the LORD said unto Moses, Lo, I come unto thee in a thick cloud, that the people may hear when I speak with thee, and believe thee for ever. And Moses told the words of the people unto the LORD.’

“Verse 16 says, ‘And it came to pass on the third day in the morning, that there were thunders and lightnings, and a thick cloud upon the mount, and the voice of the trumpet exceeding loud; so that all the people that was in the camp trembled.’

“There’s the cloud in which the glory of God is and what you’re seeing is the majesty of His glory but it’s veiled so they could look at it.

“Exodus 20:21 says, ‘And the people stood afar off, and Moses drew near unto the thick darkness where God was.’

*****

“In the Book of Nahum is a passage that while historically referring to God’s judgment of Nineveh, is looking forward to the Second Advent. It reads, ‘The LORD is slow to anger, and great in power, and will not at all acquit the wicked: the LORD hath his way in the whirlwind and in the storm, and the clouds are the dust of his feet.’

“The Book of Job also talks about the Lord’s Coming and it’s like a whirlwind and the clouds are the dust of his feet. So when the Lord has a dustup what happens is you have clouds. You know when somebody’s whipping across somewhere, they make a big cloud plume and it encompasses them. In a case like this, when it comes to the atmosphere, God’s presence makes such a disturbance in the atmosphere that it generates clouds, storms.

“At the Rapture, Believers will be caught up into this giant pavilion that accompanies the presence of the Lord and the clouds will veil what’s going on from everybody else.”

(new article tomorrow)

Ballooned to capacity, ready to burst

A popular motivational quotes makes the point, "Life is like a balloon. If you never let yourself go, you’ll never know how far you can rise.”

“If you take a balloon and blow it up, you fill it with air; you inflate it by blowing into it,” says Jordan in a tape-recorded study I came across the other day. “What you’re doing is making it larger. When you are ‘strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man; That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in love,' He’s coming in. You’re able to comprehend what God’s doing. You come to a deepening, expanded capacity to appreciate who God really is.

“Now the idea of being filled in the Bible is the idea of being controlled by something. When something FILLS you . . . it has to do with when you fill something up, you take it over completely.

“Acts 2:1-2 says, [1] And when the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were all with one accord in one place.
[2] And suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting.

“It says when that sound FILLED all the house, in other words, it was in every heart in the house. There’s none of the house that it didn’t occupy. When you fill something, it’s complete in every way. It’s there all over.

“Acts 5:28 says, [28] Saying, Did not we straitly command you that ye should not teach in this name? and, behold, ye have filled Jerusalem with your doctrine, and intend to bring this man's blood upon us.

“So you can fill a room with sound; you can fill a city with doctrine! What does that mean? Everywhere in the whole city people got this. So you can fill inanimate things and it’s the idea of, ‘It’s completely everywhere.’

“But when it’s used about people, it isn’t just that it occupies everything in you; it means that it takes over and controls everything about you. It begins to dominate your life.

*****

“John 16:6-7 says, [6] But because I have said these things unto you, sorrow hath filled your heart.
[7] Nevertheless I tell you the truth; It is expedient for you that I go away: for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send him unto you.

“Have you ever had sorrow grip you to the place where it just controlled everything about you? Brother Nick’s dad just went to be with the Lord and I told him, ‘I remember when my dad went to be with the Lord.’

“I remember the horrifying experience, one of two or three of the most devastating things that I’d ever been through. I knew he was in heaven, I knew where he was, we watched him die slowly. But the afternoon when we went to the funeral home and went in, and there his body was lying in the casket that my brother and I picked out . . .  I understood he was in heaven but there’s the part of him that had been him; the tangible touch.

“I walked over to that coffin and I looked at my dad and it was like somebody took a fist and hit me right in the gut. The wind went out of me, my jaws locked and I couldn’t speak. I went over and sat on a couch in the funeral parlor and thought, ‘What’s going on, Rick?’ I literally was 

overcome with grief. You been there?

“I sat there for probably 20 minutes like that and a dear friend came in and sat down next to me and he just began to quote to me I Thessalonians 4, beginning in verse 13: ‘But I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope.’

“He starts quoting me that and my mind’s thinking, ‘What are you doing dude? I forgot more about that passage then you know,’ because I probably did. But he just kept quoting the passage to me and got down to the end of it where it says, ‘Wherefore comfort one another with these words.’

“You could have knocked me right off that couch, because for the first time in my life I really understood what that verse meant.

“You see, when sorrow grips you that thoroughly, trauma blanks your mind out. And while that verse says, ‘comfort one another with these words,’ just that reminding . . . I knew all about the Rapture; I could expound on that passage--just here alone I spent 16 weeks going through that passage when we studied I Thessalonians.

“But in that moment it wasn’t in my mind because sorrow does that. It comes and it squeezes out everything; it grips you and controls you. It holds you in its dominion.

“Repeating those words pushed the sorrow away and brought comfort. That’s how powerful God’s Word is.”

(to be continued tomorrow)

Why you can't lose salvation

It’s actually grammatically inaccurate to say someone can lose their salvation because if you lose it, what was the person saved from to start with?!

“That’s why in Israel’s program they don’t talk so much about being saved; they talk about being saved out there in the future,” explains Jordan. “For Israel, the high percent of time the Bible talks about salvation, such as, ‘He that endures to the end SHALL be saved,’ it’s talking about salvation at the COMING of Christ—a future issue and not a present possession at that moment.

“The reason there are verses in the Bible that indicate you can lose your salvation is because in Israel, they had this physical program people could counterfeit, and the whole satanic program is to counterfeit the real thing.

“I John, for one, is written so people wouldn’t be seduced into being the counterfeit, but would be able to believe and be the real deal.

“I John gives Israel all the information they need to know so as not to be seduced by the Lie program. Not only did God put it in a Book, but He wrote it in their hearts, so that they not only knew better, they could do nothing but better if they were really born of God.

“So the ones who followed the Lie and went out, what was there problem? They weren’t really born of God, but who could tell by looking at them or listening to them? Nobody, because they could ‘fake it ’til you make it.’ That’s why God sends the strong delusion--so they would ultimately identify themselves as the rebels and be purged out.

“That’s why you read all the passages in the Hebrew epistles and Hebrew writings about people losing their salvation. It’s because they're able to outwardly demonstrate one thing and have a heart attitude of another. And it’s why He says that they who ‘endure to the end shall be saved.’ "

*****

In revealing God’s future intentions for the wicked through Nebuchadnezzar’s dream, Daniel writes about the stone “cut out of the mountain without hands, and that it brake in pieces the iron, the brass, the clay, the silver, and the gold.”

“What the mountain represents is God destroying the Gentile nations and setting up His kingdom to run the earth,” explains Jordan. “In the Scripture, a mountain often is a metaphor for a kingdom and it’s that way in Micah.

“In Zechariah, you see it again and it’s one of those symbols used to try to tie things together throughout the Scripture.

"So when Micah writes, ‘But in the last days it shall come to pass, that the mountain of the house of the LORD shall be established in the top of the mountains, and it shall be exalted above the hills; and people shall flow unto it,’ he’s talking about how God’s going to establish a kingdom that’s going to be the top kingdom of all the world.

“That’s why God promises in Micah 4:7-8, ‘And I will make her that halted a remnant, and her that was cast far off a strong nation: and the LORD shall reign over them in mount Zion from henceforth, even for ever.
[8] And thou, O tower of the flock, the strong hold of the daughter of Zion, unto thee shall it come, even the first dominion; the kingdom shall come to the daughter of Jerusalem.’

“The last thing God says, in verse 13, is [13] Arise and thresh, O daughter of Zion: for I will make thine horn iron, and I will make thy hoofs brass: and thou shalt beat in pieces many people: and I will consecrate their gain unto the LORD, and their substance unto the Lord of the whole earth.

“Messiah is going to be the king of kings and his kingdom is going to be exalted above all the other kingdoms, and all the earth is going to flow, come to Him for blessings.

“Verse 2 describes what the kingdom is going to be like; the extent of it. ‘[2] And many nations shall come, and say, Come, and let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, and to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths: for the law shall go forth of Zion, and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem.

“You have a political kingdom headquartered in Jerusalem where the Word of God comes out because the Messiah is not simply a king; He’s a priest sitting on the throne. He’s the Savior, He’s the Redeemer and He will teach us of His ways and we will walk in His paths for the law shall go forth out of Zion.

*****

“Imagine somebody saying that passage is about the gospel going around the world! That’s the way you hear that verse taught all the time!

"Is the gospel of grace the law? No. Again, that’s how you get the Galatianism; that mixing of law and grace everywhere you go. It comes from trying to take a verse like this and make it into something it’s not!

“But it’s going to be a universal kingdom. Isaiah 11 says the knowledge of God will cover the earth as the water covers the sea. It’s going to be a day when the Word of God is taken to the nations and the nations are open to it.

“When you read about the Messiah judging, He doesn’t judge with His eye. As He sits on that throne, He judges impartially, and it’s going to be a kingdom of righteous judgment. We live in world today where that doesn’t exist much.

“Think of the kid the alligator took off with from the Disney property. The salvation for that is not getting a gun or running somebody out of town.

“There’s a billboard, ‘Cain killed Abel with a rock.’ The problem is not guns; it’s a heart problem.

"The characteristic of Christ’s kingdom is one that gets rid of all the turmoil. It’s going to bring peace. The first thing going to be done is eliminating all the violence, including the cultural violence.

“As Isaiah 2:4 says, ‘And he shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people: and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.’

“Think again about the kid snatched by the alligator. Isaiah 11:6 says that in that day, ‘The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them.’

*****

“I saw a thing on the news this week about how in India they arrested eight lions and were charging them with endangering human life, and they were going to have a trial and see if they should execute them. What?!

“I mean, that’s an instinctive thing. An alligator sees a little dog on the side of the water, or a child-- they don’t know what it is. They’re doing what they do naturally.

“People talk about how wonderful nature is. You know where Darwin got his idea of the survival of the fittest? Watching nature.

“You know how nature operates? It’s the survival of the fittest. It’s when you get among humans that that rule goes out.

“In all of creation, all of nature . . . you start with the ants, a little bug down on the ground, up to the biggest mammal, it’s the survival of the fittest, and when you’re weak, they take advantage of you. All that will go away. There will be peace even in the creation.

“Like Isaiah 11 says, [7] And the cow and the bear shall feed; their young ones shall lie down together: and the lion shall eat straw like the ox.
[8] And the sucking child shall play on the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the cockatrice' den.
[9] They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain: for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the LORD, as the waters cover the sea.

“In Acts 3, Peter talks about ‘the time of restitution of all things’—that’s what we’re talking about! When the Bible talks about the kingdom Jesus Christ is going to set up, it’s not talking about some ethereal, mystical, Utopian idea that we seek for, hope for, want to have happen but don’t really have much prospect of it happening.

“The Bible’s talking about a real, literal, physical, visible, transformation on this planet where the curse of sin is removed and all nations are united together under one head in peace and harmony. It’s going to be a time of great prosperity.”

(new article tomorrow)

Dementia's struggles

Early this morning, through my job as a home health care agent, I tended to the needs of an elderly man who has significant dementia following an injury to his brain from a recent fall (he has Parkinson's). Frank still owns his long-standing Italian restaurant in Streamwood, called Franco's, now operated by relatives. He came over to Chicago from southern Italy as a child and was serving Capuchinos at the age of 8, starting his 70-plus-year career in the food industry.

After bathing him and clothing him today, I brought him in for breakfast. He ate cereal, then three Tangelos that he peeled ever so slowly, playing with the peels as he carefully placed them one-by-one on the table.

After serving him his meds crushed up in a little apple sauce, he was ready for his daily habit of taking torn-out pages from financial magazines and shuffling them after doodling on them, then repeating. His wife said he was reverting back to his days of handling inventory, payroll, billing, etc., at the restaurant.

Being with him, I was reminded of my sister, who died at 48 and was suffering from dementia associated with a brain injury she incurred working as a Greeter at Walmart, having accidentally tripped into a bad spot in their pavement outside Lawn & Garden.

Here is an old piece:

At church on Sunday I heard a Christmas song I never knew about and really liked. Called "Thou Didst Leave Thy Throne," written in 1864 by Emily E. Elliott, it's 3rd verse went, "The foxes found rest and the birds their nest In the shade of the forest tree; But thy couch was the sod, O Thou Son of God, In the deserts of Galilee: O come to my heart, Lord Jesus, There is room in my heart for Thee."

What was funny for me is I was in the midst of writing my last blog post the night before in which I used that very verse from Matthew 8: "And Jesus saith unto him, The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head."

******

On this particular Christmas week evening, with snow falling outside my window and the Bears winning in Minnesota on local TV, I am reflecting on what it means to have real security and the sense of "home." A little over an hour ago I got a call from my sister in response to a message I left for her at the desk of the psych ward at Ohio State University Harding hospital. She told me she had just been diagnosed with dementia. She will be 47 on Jan. 17.

She said, "I never ever thought this day was coming even though I knew inside it was coming." She had already been diagnosed with a brain injury stemming from a fall two-and-a-half years ago in the parking lot of Wal-Mart.

My sister asked if I was going to be able to visit her in Columbus when I came home for the holiday in another day. She actually couldn't remember if it was on my drive from Chicago to Akron. I had to tell her it would be way out of the way.

*****

What a sad reality that my sister could very well not be out of the hospital in time for Christmas. I can't imagine how we're going to have a celebratory gathering of any kind without her, knowing where she is and what's going on with her.

Still, I am very much looking forward to going home, hugging my four-legged brother, Murray, and being in my mom's guest bedroom, enjoying all the comforts and luxuries of being in my mom's house, which used to be my grandmother's house and a house where my family once lived for over a year after we came back from being missionaries in Ecuador.

Home is home is home, I guess. "What will it be like for my poor sister come Christmas?" is all I can think. I asked if she had people she could relate to at the ward (where she's been since last Thursday) and she answered something like, "Oh, they're mostly people who are in a such a drastically different situation. They're not ones you feel you can get near to. You know what I'm talking about?"

Without thinking, I answered, "Yeah, I think so. Like the homeless people I used to come across in New York." She didn't correct me.

Always remember, Satan's only a prince

The mere fact Satan is referred to as a prince in the Bible makes clear he’s not running things and is accountable to a higher authority.

“Genesis 3 tells you the fallen angels can be referred to as ‘sons of god,’ and one of the definitions of a prince is ‘the son of a king,’ ” explains David Reid, a preacher from Columbus, Ohio. “So is it reasonable to refer to an angel as a prince? That’s a completely legitimate use of the word.

“Daniel 6:1 says, ‘It pleased Darius to set over the kingdom an hundred and twenty princes, which should be over the whole kingdom.’

“My point is a prince is a meaningful role, but it’s nothing like a king. In fact, in that kingdom there in Daniel, how many princes were there? At least 120 and there’s a lot more than that in the heavenly kingdom God has.

“Daniel 9:25 talks of ‘the Messiah the Prince,’ which is Jesus Christ. Is He maybe different from other princes? He’s the Prince of princes. He’s the King of kings. He’s the Lord of lords. When it says there that He’s ‘the Messiah the Prince’ with a capital ‘P,’ He’s a prince like no other.

"Verse 26 says: [26] And after threescore and two weeks shall Messiah be cut off, but not for himself: and the people of the prince that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary; and the end thereof shall be with a flood, and unto the end of the war desolations are determined.

“What you have in verses 25-26 is the Lord Jesus Christ and Satan and they’re both princes but they’re different.

*****

“Because II Corinthians 4 says ‘Satan is the god of this world,’ people get the idea, ‘Well, if Satan’s the god of this world, then he’s obviously running things.’ That’s a misunderstanding of what the word ‘god’ is.

“Philippians 3:18-19 says, [18] (For many walk, of whom I have told you often, and now tell you even weeping, that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ:
[19] Whose end is destruction, whose God is their belly, and whose glory is in their shame, who mind earthly things.)

“That means people’s bellies are gods. That doesn’t mean their bellies are running the universe. The word ‘god’ is a reference to the fact of something being worshipped. People make gods out of wood, stone and so on, but they don’t do anything.

“Satan doesn’t own the earth because ‘the earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof.’ What it means is the world worships him. That’s entirely different. The world worships a lot of things it shouldn’t worship, that may or may not have any power.

“So what about the fact the Bible says Satan has kingdoms? Come to Daniel 10. Daniel prays and he doesn’t get an answer for a period of time. Three weeks pass and then Gabriel shows up and describes to Daniel what happened to him.

“Gabriel tells Daniel in Daniel 10:13, ‘But the prince of the kingdom of Persia withstood me one and twenty days: but, lo, Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me; and I remained there with the kings of Persia.’

“The prince of Persia is not a man; that’s an angelic authority who says, ‘I don’t authorize you to pass; your papers are not in order,’ and so Gabriel’s stuck there and can’t get through. So Michael, one of the chief princes, comes over and says, ‘Hey, we got a problem here; do I need to straighten this out?’ and the prince of Persia responds, ‘Oh, okay, you can go.’  He got overruled.

“That tells you the prince of Persia’s inferior to Michael. He had authority to say to Gabriel, ‘You can’t come in,’ but then Gabriel went to his supervisor, speaking in earthly terms.

“My point is that with these angelic princes, or devilish princes as the case may be, have some authority but it’s a limited authority and can be overruled.

“From Daniel 10:20, we know there’s some satanic authority responsible for the prince of Persia but what happens to that devil’s authority? The Persian kingdom ends up conquered by Greece and then the prince of Grecia has the authority the prince of Persia once had.

“You’ve heard of the phrase, ‘The power behind the throne,’ and there’s earthly kingdoms with human rulers that go on, but there are devils that have influence over those kingdoms.

“Notice in Daniel 10:21, Gabriel says, [21] But I will shew thee that which is noted in the scripture of truth: and there is none that holdeth with me in these things, but Michael your prince.

“What does it mean when he says, ‘Michael is your prince’? Daniel 12:1 says, [1] And at that time shall Michael stand up, the great prince which standeth for the children of thy people: and there shall be a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation even to that same time: and at that time thy people shall be delivered, every one that shall be found written in the book.

“He was called a ‘chief prince’ in Daniel 10 and a ‘great prince’ in Daniel 12. Isn’t that interesting? I don’t know how this all worked out, but what God did is He obviously made a decision that Michael was going to be the prince corresponding with the people of Israel and that he has authority he can exercise on their behalf as the chief prince and the great prince. He has greater authority than that of the prince of Persia.

*****

“Here’s what I think that tells you. When Satan says to Jesus Christ that he has the kingdoms of this world, well, he’s right in a fashion. In other words, did the prince of Persia report to Satan? Yes, he did. So did the prince of Grecia.

“Satan influenced those kingdoms because what God did was delegate authority in the universe so there were principalities and powers that had authorities over them. And when Satan offers those to the Lord Jesus Christ, he can offer them in the sense that Satan currently has influence over those kingdoms.

“The bottom line, though, folks, is that authority he has, No. 1 he’s still accountable to God and No.  2, when Jesus Christ wants those kingdoms, what’s He going to do? He’s going to take them and He’s not going to ask for permission!

“God says in Job 41:11 that ‘whatsoever is under the whole heaven is mine.’ He has all things, it’s all His, it will never stop being His.

“Remember when we looked at dominion, it talked about man having dominion over animals. Well, if man’s dominion is transferred to Satan, then Satan would have dominion over animals, right? If that was true.

“God says in Psalm 50, [10] For every beast of the forest is mine, and the cattle upon a thousand hills.
[11] I know all the fowls of the mountains: and the wild beasts of the field are mine.
[12] If I were hungry, I would not tell thee: for the world is mine, and the fulness thereof.

“When Adam sinned, just to be clear, God still had control over all the universe, over all the beasts of the field; they belonged to Him.

*****

“II Chronicles 36:23 says, [23] Thus saith Cyrus king of Persia, All the kingdoms of the earth hath the LORD God of heaven given me; and he hath charged me to build him an house in Jerusalem, which is in Judah. Who is there among you of all his people? The LORD his God be with him, and let him go up.

“Where did Cyrus get kingdoms from the earth? From God the Father. Even though Satan has, again, these middle managers, these folks that have intermediate authority, who is the one determining when kingdoms rise and fall? God the Father.

“Even Satan’s influence over kingdoms is limited because God decides what kingdoms are going to be in place at a given time. He decides the extent of their authority and how long they last. God has the earth, everything under heaven and all beasts. He gives kingdoms and He takes kingdoms away. All beings are accountable to God and there are no rogue traders.”

POTUS Obama the great Pharaoh of U.S.?

President Obama gets more than a kick out of his fellow Illuminati brothers’ insistence he’s a clone/reincarnation of the Egyptian Pharaoh Akhenaten, regarded as “one of the most original thinkers of his era.” Just look on Google to see likeness images.

Akhenaten is credited with the vast settlement of immigrants to Middle Egypt, 200 miles south of Cairo, represented today by the archaeological desert of Amarna beside the River Nile.

“Thirty-three centuries ago, this spot was home to tens of thousands of ancient Egyptians, brought there by the will of a single man: the pharaoh Akhenaten,” informs Alastair Sooke of the London Telegraph. “Rebel, tyrant, and prophet of arguably the world’s earliest monotheistic religion, Akhenaten has been called history’s first individual. His impact upon ancient Egyptian customs and beliefs stretching back for centuries was so alarming that, in the generations following his death in 1336 BC, he was branded a heretic. Official king lists omitted his name.

“For my money, this makes him the most fascinating and controversial figure in Egyptian history. And that’s before you consider his marriage to Nefertiti, known as the Mona Lisa of antiquity thanks to her austerely beautiful painted limestone bust discovered in a sculptor’s workshop at Amarna and now in the Egyptian Museum in Berlin, or the likelihood that he fathered Tutankhamun, the most famous pharaoh of them all. If I were in charge of the British Museum, I would commission an exhibition about Akhenaten in a trice.”

*****

Just as Ezekiel 28 presents a detailed description of the Antichrist--first as the man of sin, then as the son of perdition—under the picture-type of the prince turned King Tyrus, Ezekiel 29 reveals Satan under the picture of another one of his dupes, Pharaoh king of Egypt.

The infamous passage reads, “Speak, and say, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I am against thee, Pharaoh king of Egypt, the great dragon that lieth in the midst of his rivers, which hath said, My river is mine own, and I have made it for myself.
[4] But I will put hooks in thy jaws, and I will cause the fish of thy rivers to stick unto thy scales, and I will bring thee up out of the midst of thy rivers, and all the fish of thy rivers shall stick unto thy scales.
[5] And I will leave thee thrown into the wilderness, thee and all the fish of thy rivers: thou shalt fall upon the open fields; thou shalt not be brought together, nor gathered: I have given thee for meat to the beasts of the field and to the fowls of the heaven.
[6] And all the inhabitants of Egypt shall know that I am the LORD, because they have been a staff of reed to the house of Israel.

*****

Who is the great dragon in the passage? Satan. Other such references are in Revelation 12, Job 41 and Isaiah 27.

“There’s a description of Satan in Ezekiel 32 that is one of the most fascinating things . . . you read this stuff and say, ‘Man, what in the world?!’ but you say, ‘Well, it’s God’s Word,’ ” reasons Jordan. 

“The key is you’re looking beyond the individual instrument, just like when someone looks at the Believer.  When Paul says ‘that Christ might be magnified in my body whether by life or death,’ it’s Christ that’s the issue, working through Paul and it’s God’s will that’s the issue.

“In like manner, when you look at Satan and his emissaries, it’s really Satan who’s the issue and you see this description of him go on down through chapters 30-32, and when you come down toward the end of Ezekiel 32, as he describes Pharaoh, this, by the way, is described in Revelation 2:24 as the depths of Satan.

Ezekiel writes, [29] There is Edom, her kings, and all her princes, which with their might are laid by them that were slain by the sword: they shall lie with the uncircumcised, and with them that go down to the pit.
[30] There be the princes of the north, all of them, and all the Zidonians, which are gone down with the slain; with their terror they are ashamed of their might; and they lie uncircumcised with them that be slain by the sword, and bear their shame with them that go down to the pit.
[31] Pharaoh shall see them, and shall be comforted over all his multitude, even Pharaoh and all his army slain by the sword, saith the Lord GOD.
[32] For I have caused my terror in the land of the living: and he shall be laid in the midst of the uncircumcised with them that are slain with the sword, even Pharaoh and all his multitude, saith the Lord GOD.

*****

“This is talking about this great battle and Pharaoh is going to see all these people who’ve been slain and the killing of his armies, and notice it says he ‘shall be comforted over all his multitude.’

“That army back in verses 27-30, is a bunch of people God slew and damned to hell, and the picture is Satan comforted over the damnation of his own people and what Romans 1:32 says is, [32] Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them.

“That’s that same nature; it’s part of Adam. That’s what sin is like. Don’t you ever think that sin is any different in you than it is in anybody else.

“This is why things get to the place they get, where you look around you and say, ‘Well, how can this madness go on?!’ Don’t forget II Peter 2’s talking about the MADNESS of the prophet.

“You see, sin can never be satisfied. You can’t satiate it. Sin deadens and you adjust to it, and when you get dead to the further stimulus of it, now you have to keep going further into it, having a little more and a little more.

“That issue in Ezekiel 32 is about pleasure. That’s the depth of sin. That’s when sin has reaped its harvest in a person’s life to the place where they are just exactly like, in attitude and actions, their father the devil.”

Antichristfest lineup announced

Interestingly, Barnes’ Notes (circa 1830s) says that II Peter 2:13 (“And shall receive the reward of unrighteousness, as they that count it pleasure to riot in the day time. Spots they are and blemishes, sporting themselves with their own deceivings while they feast with you”) references a “sacred festival” where the attendees celebrated “with licentious feelings, giving free indulgence to their corrupt desires by gazing on the females who were assembled with them.”

The next verse reports, “Having eyes full of adultery, and that cannot cease from sin; beguiling unstable souls: an heart they have exercised with covetous practices; cursed children.”

“They wind up in the ‘last days’ under the ministry of the Antichrist, who rides to power riding the whore from Revelation 17,” explains Jordan. “These people are right in there with him. They’re a part of this polluted religious system that promotes, through the false prophet, the activity of the Antichrist and they wind up with the judgment of that, and in the midst of that judgment don’t even understand. Still deceived, still dead to see it, sporting themselves, reveling, while they feast with you.

“That’s a great modern word--sporting. What do you do in a sports car? Do you try to be real inconspicuous? No. you’re out cutting the rug, trying to call attention to yourself.

“When he says of them in verse 13, “spots they are and blemishes,” the other time spot’s used in I Peter 1, he writes, ‘But with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot.’

“These people are the exact opposite of Jesus Christ. James 1:27 says, ‘Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.’

“That issue of spots has to do with a sore spot, literally, that comes up on their body for having taken ‘the mark of the beast.’ Revelation 16 describes it as a running sore like leprosy. In Revelation 3 it says, ‘Thou hast a few names even in Sardis which have not defiled their garments; and they shall walk with me in white: for they are worthy.’

“When it says, ‘Having eyes of adultery,’ that’s the depths of sin’s dominion. I’ve said to you time and time again through the years that sin starts on the inside. People get mad at sin and say, ‘We don’t smoke, we don’t chew, we don’t hang with the folks that do,’ and they’re always dealing with externals, but sin always begins inside. It isn’t what you put into your body that defiles you.

“Mark 7:21 says, ‘For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders.’

“That’s why that verse in II Peter says they have a heart they’ve exercised with covetous practices. You know where the defilement comes? In Luke 6, he talks about ‘an evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which is evil: for of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaketh.’ It comes from a sin nature.”

God's fix for those 'not of us'

One of the most humbling, frightening passages in all of Paul’s epistles, by Richard Jordan’s perspective, is in II Thessalonians 2. He says, “When I read this thing I stand next to mute. I look at it and say, ‘Whoa, man.’

“The passage is about the Antichrist. Starting in Verse 8, it says, “And then shall that Wicked be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of his coming.

[9] Even him, whose coming is after the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders,
[10] And with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved.
[11] And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie:
[12] That they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness.

“You see how ‘wicked’ is capitalized? It’s the Wicked one. It’s a title. Over in II Peter 3:17 it says, ‘Ye therefore, beloved, seeing ye know these things before, beware lest ye also, being led away with the error of the wicked, fall from your own stedfastness.’

“When the Antichrist comes, he’s going to come as a religionist. He’s going to come as the Great Peacemaker, but when he does, he’s going to come with powers, signs, miraculous demonstrations.

*****

“Notice who he deceives. Verse 10 says it is those who ‘received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved.’ That’s WHY they were able to be deceived.

“You know who the ‘strong delusion’ is that God sends them? It’s the Antichrist and his program. It’s the doctrine that goes back to Romans 1 and Genesis 3. It’s the deification of the creature.

"They ‘worshipped and served the creature more than the creator,’ so the ultimate form of that comes in the personage of the Antichrist and God literally sends him on the scene.

“You go back and read Isaiah 10 where God says to Israel, ‘The Antichrist is going to do this, that and the other to you, but he’s going to do MY work, ‘purging out the rebel’; identifying the unbeliever. Now, he won’t mean it to be so; he’s going to think he’s doing that, but I’m going to use the wrath of men to praise me.’

“By the way, that’s what that verse in Psalms is talking about. It’s not talking about if your neighbor gets mad at you, God uses that to honor him.

“The Lord Himself becomes the author of falsehood for those who reject the truth. You know what that means? That means God will give you what you want.

“God says, ‘Everybody wants to go that way, so here, let me fix it where you CAN’T resist it. You don’t love the truth, you don’t want the truth, you don’t want what I got, so I’ll fix it where you go out from us.’

*****

“That’s what I John 2:19 means when he writes, ‘They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us: but they went out, that they might be made manifest that they were not all of us.'

“They went out from us because they were not of us. Because if they had been OF us they wouldn’t have gone out FROM us.

“If the people who left, if what they had loved was the truth, where would they have stayed when the lie showed up?

“That’s what happened to Israel when Jesus Christ came. He said, ‘I’m the Word of God. If you’d have believed what Moses wrote; if you’d have been believing God’s Word when I showed up, what would you have done? You’d have been believing me. Why? Because I’m the WORD! I’m the one who said that stuff back there!'

“That’s how Paul explains what happened to Israel in Romans 9 and 10; how he explains why the things that happened to the nation Israel happened to them when they rejected Christ.

*****

“Again, II Thessalonians 2 says that God will ‘send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie: That they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness.’

“That’s why I say to you that when you pick up this Book, you better be careful about how you pick it up and read it and study it because that Book—the Word of God ‘is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.’

“That Book reads you and will give you back what you want out of it. The heart attitude with which you approach the Book is going to determine the answers that you get out of it.

“The Bible’s the only Book in the world that, when you come to it, it will give you a different answer depending on your heart-attitude condition. It’s a two-edged sword. It’s not a Book you mess around with. It’s not a Book you make a living with.

“That’s how you watch things test people’s heart about where they are. I’m not talking about their intellect. You can make a lot of mistakes with your noggin--I mean look at me; I make mistakes all the time.

*****

“You know the difference in the Old Testament between King David and King Solomon? People talk about, ‘Well, I wouldn’t want that guy around; he was a drunk.’ Why, if King David walked in here right now and you evaluated his life and career, most of you wouldn’t want him around. He was a drunkard; a drunken murderer, an adulterer, a polygamist.

“He had a family of kids and every one of them was a brat. He didn’t have one kid you’d like to have around in your neighborhood. If he moved into your neighborhood, you’d be calling the law every night. Rowdy bunch of no-goodniks. He was a ruffskullian (sp?). One guy called him a ‘bloody man’ and he was.

“For all the mistakes he made, he was one of the Bible’s lousiest fathers. He couldn’t qualify to be an elder in this church according to I Timothy 3. He didn’t know how to rule his house well.

*****

“Did you ever really think about David like that? The Bible tells the truth about its heroes. You think about the psalms and this great king in Israel and he was. Did you know the Bible calls him ‘a man after God’s own heart’?

“You say, ‘How could he be such a rascal in so many areas?’ You know what, there’s one thing David never did. He made a lot of mistakes, a lot of sins of the flesh, but his heart never turned away from the Lord. He never went after other gods. His heart was fixed right on the Lord. ‘A man after God’s own heart.’

“Solomon, on the other hand, was born with a golden spoon in his mouth. A man who God said, ‘What do you want?’ and he said, ‘Make me wise,’ and God made him healthy, wealthy and wise, and yet if you go to II Chronicles 9:13, you’ll find at the paragraph mark that verse where Solomon becomes a type of the Antichrist for the rest of his career.

“How in the world could he do that? You know what he did? He went after other gods. Solomon’s the one who wrote the Book of Ecclesiastes. He tried all the sins of the flesh, everything the world had to offer, but his dad did that, too. You know what Solomon’s problem was? Nehemiah calls them ‘outlandish women.’

“That doesn’t mean the Madonna pop-star types. He’s talking about women from outside the land. Who was THAT? Gentiles. What was the problem with that? They brought in their gods! Solomon forsook God and God’s Word and God’s instructions and went after the idols. He went after Baal and became a Baal worshipper. It’s a heart problem.

*****

“That was the difference between King Saul and David, and Samuel identifies it that way. I’m just saying to you, when you come to that Book, the way you better come is to say, ‘Lord, whatever you say, you speak and whoever you contradict and whoever you mess up, it’s okay.’

“Now, that’s hard because, sooner or later, it’s going to be your friends and your family and your professors and your religion. I’m not talking about being nasty and unkind and arrogant and independent and can’t get along with anybody—I’m talking about being willing not to be run by anything. Be like Martin Luther who said, ‘My conscience is bound by the Word of God and here I stand.’

“Then if you make a mistake, if you just keep studying, the Word of God will correct your mistake. That doesn’t mean you’re going to be right every minute; it just means you know what’s right and you trust it. That’s why I John 2 says what it does when he says ‘they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us.’

“God sends the rod of testing to Israel in the person of the Antichrist and his program and God sends ‘a strong delusion’ that everybody who wasn’t of the truth is seduced into following the lie. I John gives them all the information 

they need to know so as not to be seduced.

“They’ll never be able to stand before God and say, ‘Well, if we’d have just known better, we’d have done better.’ He’ll be able to pop open I John and say, ‘See there, you knew better.’ "

(to be continued tomorrow)

Only 10% needed for U.S. demise

A basic sociological truth says that within any group of people, large or small, 10% of the people of the organization (institution, movement, religion, cult, body, etc.) thoroughly committed to one idea, can control the whole organization and carry it in the direction of that ideal.

“In the business world you hear about the 80-20 rule (80% of your business comes from 20% of the activity), but the rule of social movement is all you have to have is 10% committed to something to control it,” explains Richard Jordan (shorewoodbiblechurch.org). “I say that because if you have 10% of the populace that is committed to the truth, you can influence it. By the way, when 10% of the populace becomes Muslim, are they not thoroughly committed to what they do?

“You watch what’s happening in Europe today and you’re just seeing a foretaste. Eventually that stuff's coming here; it will just come in a different form because when it hops the pond it has to get over here where we are, and all of the Americas have been different.

“The things that hold a culture together have long been dissolved here in the United States and now you have a generation of people with no understanding of what our culture is about.

“There’s a revisionist kind of idea and even the simple cultural foundations, and the understanding that carries our culture along, is gone and generations have come along who’ve had that educated out of them. Those people are now taking the control reins of culture.

“People in the 40-60 age group are the people who control the power stroke in a culture. You’ve got these folks who in their 30s now who’ve been completely educated out of any understanding of what made America or Western culture the way it is.

“I’ve told you before about meeting the attorney in Chicago, a graduate of a big law school who practices in a big law firm, and we were talking about the Good Samaritan Law and I asked him if he had any idea where that name came from. He said ‘no’ and when I told him it came out of the Bible, he said, ‘No, that’s not possible. That’s not right. Separation of church and state; you can’t do that.’

“Here’s a young guy, thoroughly educated, who didn’t know what the Parable of the Good Samaritan was. I mean, you don’t have to be a Believer; you just understand there’s certain things like David and Goliath and Noah and the Ark that are metaphors a culture uses to pass on its values and the things that underpin its thinking.

“You ever hear people say, ‘We just study the Bible as literature; not as a religious thing’? That’s what they’re talking about. There was a time in the not too distant past where you were considered not to be properly educated if you didn’t have a working knowledge of the King James Bible.

*****

“I was fascinated back at the 400^th anniversary of the King James Bible, a number of professors at universities, including literature experts, wrote books about the social-cultural impact of it. They understand that our language, many of the phrases you and I use just naturally, come right out of your Bible.

“That’s because it’s been a cultural underpinning, but that’s being done away with and you have generations of young people now who’ve been educated without any of that attachment. So as they begin to take control what takes the place of the Scripture is paganism.

“Paganism is a religious philosophy all the religions of the world focus in. The Bible says there’s God and there’s man, but paganism says, ‘No, there’s only one bucket; it’s all just the same.’

"When you have God and man, you have the master-servant, Lord and man--absolutes that mean there’s a right and wrong. There’s someone to define what a marriage is, define what life is, define what good is, define what evil is and so forth.

“We use all these fancy terms like ‘multiculturalism’ and ‘relativism’ and all that, but all that is in its ultimate form is just an expression of paganism.

“The thing you have to understand is the course of a nation in the 'dispensation of grace' is determined by the amount of sound doctrine resident in the populace; that’s going to determine the strength of the true church; not the institutional, civil religion, but the true church and our impact.

“We don’t have to be the majority, we never have been, but the spiritual impact of truth is so powerful. Paul says, ‘As unknown and yet well-known,’ and that’s the way we are, but when that’s so diminished it comes to the place where there’s no ability to affect the culture.”

(new article tomorrow)

Missing wisdom from Proverbs commentaries:

Literally in the first nine chapters of the Book of Proverbs is a picture of the earthly ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ and the issues of wisdom and wisdom preaching He carries out in His earthly ministry.

“You can read books on the Book of Proverbs until your eyes bug out and no one will tell you Proverbs is a book of prophecy,” said Jordan last week. “All my life as a Christian I’ve heard people say, ‘Well, you know you need to read one chapter of the Book of Proverbs every day.'

"If today’s the eighth day of the month, for example, you should be reading Proverbs 8. Proverbs has 31 chapters and there’s 31 days in a month. The months that don’t have 31 days, well, just read 30 chapters.

“I’ve known folks who’ve done that for 30-40 years of their life and nobody ever told them that what you’re reading about is not doctrine for a Believer in the Body of Christ today. You have people today in the Grace Movement who use the Book of Proverbs as a template for godly edification in the dispensation of grace when the book itself is not about us; it’s about prophecy.

“Of course you’re reading instruction—wisdom, righteousness and all that kind of business. Proverbs 1 tells you what it’s for, but it’s in the prophetic program.

***** 

“Would it surprise you to understand Proverbs begins with a statement about the condition of Israel in ‘the last days,’ in the tribulation period at the end of the fifth course of judgment, and the reason it does that is found in the first verse of chapter 30: ‘The words of Agur the son of Jakeh, even the prophecy: the man spake unto Ithiel, even unto Ithiel and Ucal.’

“So when you start out the Book, and by the way, if you go to verse 1:20 it says, ‘[20] Wisdom crieth without; she uttereth her voice in the streets.’ Who is wisdom in the Book of Proverbs? Well, in chapter 8 wisdom is personified. Wisdom speaks, utters.”

*****

Here is a related piece from a 2010 post on this site:

All along in Israel’s history the people would read and study the Book of Proverbs knowing it had special application for the future generation of Believers living through the “last days.”

The first nine chapters of Proverbs actually represent an introduction David writes to his son, Solomon, about wisdom. Before the proverbs are even listed, David advises Solomon about wisdom. The last two chapters give a conclusion. In fact, Proverbs 30:1 and 31:1 are not even proverbs; they’re prophecies warning the reader about when the book will have its specific significance.

“When the proverbs of Solomon begin in Chapter 10:1 and extend to the end of Chapter 29, those proverbs are to express the wisdom of God for a worthy walk of the ‘believing remnant,’ especially in that Fifth Course of Judgment in that time of their captivity; in the time of their suffering and their persecution and their estrangement,” says Jordan.

“They’re going to have to have a worthy walk in the details of their life and remember that, under the law system, the law controlled the details of their life right down to the fine-tuning of things. It’s the minute things they’re going to disassociate themselves entirely from the inroads of the vain, apostate religious system in Israel. They’re going to need keen judgment and insight so as not to be seduced by the satanic policy of evil against the nation—the seductive policy that would deceive the very elect themselves.”

*****

In a very literal way, the future generation, just as with Believers today, will need to be able to perceive and identify words of understanding from the words of deception and foolishness.

Jordan reasons, “God says to Job in Job 38, ‘Who is this that darkeneth counsel with words without knowledge?’ You see, words without knowledge—words that don’t give understanding—darken your mind. They darken counsel. They darken the ability to know what to do. These proverbs are going to give them words that give them the ability to perceive that.”

When Proverbs says its aim is “to give subtlety to the simple,” the issue of subtlety is the issue of craftiness. “You remember in Genesis 3:1 what it says about the serpent; that ‘he was more subtle than all the beasts of the field’?” says Jordan. “He was a crafty, cagey guy who was hard to catch and easy to be caught by.

“Jesus says to the apostles in the Great Commission, ‘I’m going to send you out as sheep among wolves; be wise as serpents and harmless as a dove.’ You need to have some subtlety. Some craftiness so you can avoid being caught by the snare of the Adversary.

“Now, why would simple people be in danger of being caught in craftiness? In Chapter 14:15, he says ‘the simple believe every word, but the prudent man looketh well to his going.’ And in Proverbs, when it talks about the simple . . . even like we saw when Wisdom called the religious leaders simple, it’s because they just believed every word instead of checking and looking and finding and understanding. They just took their word for it and you can easily be deceived that way.”

*****

Among Proverbs’ fascinating aspects is how both wisdom and folly are personified as women. When wisdom speaks, for instance, it’s in three different formats.

Jordan explains, “First she speaks in the city; in the streets to the leaders of the nation. Then she withdraws herself and talks in private. She builds herself a house and goes into her own chamber and talks to just the people who are willing to come into her house. And then she sends her emissaries out into the city to invite other people into the house.

“There’s going to come a time in Israel when Wisdom will cry in the streets and do what she does in the latter part of Chapter 1 (beginning in verse 20), which is to talk to the religious leaders of the nation and say, ‘Come and repent because the wrath of God’s coming, and if you don’t get right and hearken to me, the wrath of Almighty God is going to destroy you.’

“When they don’t hearken, Wisdom cries again (in Chapter 8), but this time she’s not out in the streets, she’s gone over and built her a house, and it’s from her house that she cries and invites people, ‘Psst! C’mon over here, I want to talk to you!’ and they go in the house.

“Of course, all of that is exactly what happens in the earthly ministry of Christ. He starts out publicly in the streets calling the nation to repentance. Then, in the middle part of His ministry, about Matthew 11 and 12, He withdraws, and just at the point in Matthew 12 when the Pharisees and Sadducees—the religious leaders—begin to develop a plot to kill Him, He withdraws Himself from them.

“In Matthew 16, Peter says, ‘Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.’ Jesus says, ‘You’re right; don’t tell anybody.’ Isn’t that strange? He goes up on the Mount of Transfiguration with Peter, James and John and is transfigured from them, and they see His kingdom glory and majesty and, as they’re coming down from the mountain, He says, ‘Now you guys have seen it, but don’t tell anybody.’

“Wait a minute! Before, they’d been going around saying, ‘Hey, He’s here! He’s here! Trust him!’ Now He’s saying, ‘Psst! Come over here guys. Let’s regroup.’

“When He does go outside to talk to people, He says, ‘From now on I’m only gonna talk in parables so you guys can’t understand it. People in my house over here, they can understand it.’

“And He says ‘the kingdom’s gonna be taken from you,’ meaning it’s going to be taken from the religious leaders of Israel and given to a nation that brings forth the fruit thereof.  He says, ‘Fear not, little flock, it’s your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom,’ and He literally builds within the nation Israel a new nation; within the house of Israel, a new house. A house where wisdom’s gonna live.

“And then, as in Proverbs 1, He sends His spirit down on them and then He sends His emissaries out of that house in the early Acts period to cry once again and to entreat. And in Proverbs 9, they go out and say, ‘Hey, there’s dinner at home. Come and dine. All is ready.’ You have parables in Matthew about the feast and the dinner that’s there, and you have them going out on the highways and in the hinterlands.

“David personifies wisdom as a person, and when it speaks in Israel it’s going to follow this pattern so that when you get over to Matthew, and that generation that Proverbs 30 says is going to show up—there is a generation that does these things—when they show up, John the Baptist identifies them and then you see wisdom cry in the streets, then go into the house, then send out the apostles and the ‘little flock.’

“It’s that prophetic sense that Proverbs 30:1 and 31:1 are talking about; in the day when Wisdom speaks in their midst that this book will come into its own.”

*****

David gives four purposes the proverbs were collected together to accomplish. The first purpose, which is to know wisdom and instruction, is amplified in Chapter 1: 7-9. The second purpose, to perceive the words of understanding, is amplified in Chapter 1:10 to the end of chapter. The third purpose, to receive guidance in judgment and equity, can be found in Chapter 2. The fourth purpose is “to give subtlety to the simple, to the young man knowledge and discretion.”

“Beginning in Chapter 3, all the way down to the end of Chapter 9, or at least to the end of Chapter 7 (chapters 8 and 9 is a monologue where Wisdom speaks again), you have the focus on that fourth purpose,” says Jordan. “David was the most concerned . . . You know when you give your kids instruction, you got some things you want them to know about. You tell them to do this, this and this, and, ‘This one here, man, we need to talk about!’

“The most demanding one of these things—the one that David wanted Solomon to know the most about—is the one that God through David and Solomon wanted the ‘believing remnant’ in the last days to know the most about. Have subtlety. Have the ability to know and have knowledge and discretion.

“And that’s the reason that all through Chapters 3-7 . . . that’s where that stuff about that ‘strange woman’ comes up. That strange woman, folks, in Revelation 17, is that religious system.

“That apostate religious system that starts back in Genesis and is introduced to the nation Israel through the tribe of Dan and is called Baal worship goes all down through the Bible and becomes the religion of the Antichrist. Part of the seduction is that thing in Revelation 2:14 and 20 where that woman Jezebel seduces the servants of God to commit fornication in the context of religion.

“These proverbs are designed to equip these people to be aware of the problems and these (four purposes) are going to give the ability not to be seduced. You and I today face that same religious system. It doesn’t make any difference what God’s doing, Satan has his religious system out there and it adapts; it doesn’t change what it’s doing, it just adapts its tactics.

“What the Proverbs were going to do for Israel, and what they will do for the believers in Israel, is give them the capacity to stay out of the trap and not step in the snare of the Adversary. That’s what Paul’s epistles do for us. (II Timothy 2:24)

“Satan has a religious system to catch you. In the Dispensation of Grace it’s called legalism. External religious legalism where what’s out there is where you think God’s working and where you’re going to find His revelation—‘What’s out there is the way I know God’s value and esteem for me, so what I need to do is produce stuff out there rather than being strengthened by His Spirit in my inner man and having the identity God gives me inside of me living out through me.’

“Satan uses that hook to snare and Paul says when a Believer’s caught in that, he opposes himself; he lives the opposite of who he really is. He frustrates the grace of God."